LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSJDi 


Lady  Merton,  Colonist 


BY  THE    SAME  AUTHOR 

Amiel's  Journal  (translated) 

Miss  Bretherton 

Robert  Elsmere 

The  History  of  David  Grieve 

Marcella 

Sir  George  Tressady 

Helbeck  of  Bannisdale 

Eleanor 

Lady  Rose's  Daughter 

The  Marriage  of  William  Ashe 

Agatha 

MiLLY   AND    OlLY 

The  Testing  of  Diana  Mallory 
Marriage  a  la  Mode 


LADY    MERTON 
COLONIST 


n 


BY 

MRS.  HUMPHRY  WARD 


FRONTISPIECE 

BY  ALBERT  STERNER 


NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  CO. 

1910 


ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED,   INCLUDING  THAT  OF  TRANSLATION 
INTO  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES,  INCLUDING  THE  SCANDINAVIAN 

COPYRIGHT,    1910,   BY   MRS.  HXIMPHRY   WARD 
PUBLISHED,  APRIL,    I910 


COPYRIGHT,    1909,    1910,   BY  THE   CURTIS  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 
PUBLISHED  IN  ENGLAND  UNDER  THE  TITLE,  "  CANADIAN  BORN  " 


A  FOREWORD 

Towards  the  end  of  this  story  the  readers  of  it 
will  find  an  account  of  an  "unknown  lake"  in  the 
northern  Rockies,  together  with  a  picture  of  its 
broad  expanse,  its  glorious  mountains,  and  of  a 
white  explorers'  tent  pitched  beside  it.  Strictly 
speaking,  "  Lake  Elizabeth  "  is  a  lake  of  dream. 
But  it  has  an  original  on  this  real  earth,  which 
bears  another  and  a  real  name,  and  was  discovered 
two  years  ago  by  my  friend  Mrs.  SchafFer,  of  Phil- 
adelphia, to  whose  enchanting  narratives  of  travel 
and  exploration  in  these  untrodden  regions  I  list- 
ened with  delight  at  Field,  British  Columbia,  in 
June,  1908.  She  has  given  me  leave  to  use  her 
own  photograph  of  the  "  unknown  lake,"  and 
some  details  from  her  record  of  it,  for  my  own 
purposes  ;  and  I  can  only  hope  that  in  the  sum- 
mers to  come  she  may  unlock  yet  other  secrets, 
unravel  yet  other  mysteries,  in  that  noble  unvis- 
ited  country  which  lies  north  and  northeast  of  the 
Bow  Valley  and  the  Kicking  Horse  Pass. 

Mary  A.  Ward. 


Lady  Merton,  Colonist 


LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST 

CHAPTER  I 

**I  CALL  this  part  of  the  hne  beastly  depressing." 

The  speaker  tossed  his  cigarette-end  away  as 
he  spoke.  It  fell  on  the  railway  line,  and  the  tiny 
smoke  from  it  curled  up  for  a  moment  against  the 
heavy  background  of  spruce  as  the  train  receded. 

"All  the  same,  this  is  going  to  be  one  of  the 
most  exciting  parts  of  Canada  before  long,"  said 
Lady  Merton,  looking  up  from  her  guide-book. 
"I  can  tell  you  all  about  it." 

"For  heaven's  sake,  don't!"  said  her  companion 
hastily.  "  My  dear  Elizabeth,  I  really  must  warn 
you.     You're  losing  your  head." 

"I  lost  it  long  ago.  To-day  I  am  a  bore  — 
to-morrow  I  shall  be  a  nuisance.  Make  up  your 
mind  to  it." 

"I  thought  you  were  a  reasonable  person!  — 
you  used  to  be.  Now  look  at  that  view,  Elizabeth. 
We've  seen  the  same  thing  for  twelve  hours,  and  if 
it  wasn't  soon  going  to  be  dark  we  should  see  the 
same    thinj?    for    twelve    hours    more.     What    is 


4  LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

there  to  go  mad  over  in  that?"  Her  brother 
waved  his  hand  indignantly  from  right  to  left 
across  the  disappearing  scene.  "As  for  me,  I 
am  only  sustained  by  the  prospect  of  the  good 
dinner  that  I  know  Yerkes  means  to  give  us  in 
a  quarter  of  an  hour.  I  won't  be  a  minute  late 
for  it!     Go  and  get  ready,  EHzabeth " 

"Another  lake!"  cried  Lady  Merton,  with  g 
jump.  "Oh,  what  a  darling!  That's  the 
twentieth  since  tea.  Look  at  the  reflections  — 
and  that  delicious  island!  And  oh!  what  are 
those  birds  V 

She  leant  over  the  side  of  the  observation  plat- 
form, attached  to  the  private  car  in  which  she  and 
her  brother  were  travelling,  at  the  rear  of  the  heavy 
Canadian  Pacific  train.  To  the  left  of  the  train 
a  small  blue  lake  had  come  into  view,  a  lake  much 
indented  with  small  bays  running  up  among  the 
woods,  and  a  couple  of  islands  covered  with  scrub 
of  beech  and  spruce,  set  sharply  on  the  clear  water. 
On  one  side  of  the  lake,  the  forest  was  a  hideous 
waste  of  burnt  trunks,  where  the  gaunt  stems  — 
charred  or  singed,  snapped  or  twisted,  or  flayed  — 
of  the  trees  which  remained  standing  rose  dread- 
fully into  the  May  sunshine,  above  a  chaos  of 
black  ruin  below.  But  except  for  this  blemish  — 
the  only  sign  of  man  —  the  little  lake  was  a  gem 
of  beauty.     The  spring  green  clothed  its  rocky 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST  5 

sides;  the  white  spring  clouds  floated  above  it,  and 
within  it;  and  small  beaches  of  white  pebbles 
seemed  to  invite  the  human  feet  which  had 
scarcely  yet  come  near  them. 

"What  does  it  matter?"  yawned  her  brother. 
"  I  don't  want  to  shoot  them.  And  why  you 
make  such  a  fuss  about  the  lakes,  when,  as  you 
say  yourself,  there  are  about  two  a  mile,  and  none 
of  them  has  got  a  name  to  its  back,  and  they're 
all  exactly  alike,  and  all  full  of  beastly  mosquitoes 
in  the  summer  —  it  beats  me!  I  wish  Yerkes 
would  hurry  up."  He  leant  back  sleepily  against 
the  door  of  the  car  and  closed  his  eyes. 

"It's  because  they  haven't  got  a  name  —  and 
they're  so  endless!  —  and  the  place  is  so  big!  — 
and  the  people  so  few!  —  and  the  chances  are  so 
many  —  and  so  queer!"  said  Elizabeth  Merton 
laughing. 

"What  sort  of  chances  .f"' 

"Chances  of  the  future." 

"Hasn't  got  any  chances!"  said  Philip  Gaddes- 
den,  keeping  his  hands  in  his  pockets. 

"Hasn't  it.?  Owl!"  Lady  Merton  neatly 
pinched  the  arm  nearest  to  her.  "As  I've 
explained  to  you  many  times  before,  this  is  the 
Hinterland  of  Ontario  —  and  it's  only  been 
surveyed,  except  just  along  the  railway,  a  few 
years  ago  —  and  it's  as  rich  as  rich " 


6  LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

"  I  say,  I  wish  you  wouldn't  reel  out  the  guide- 
book like  that!"  grumbled  the  somnolent  person 
beside  her.  "As  if  I  didn't  know  all  about  the 
Cobalt  mines,  and  that  kind  of  stuff." 

"Did  you  make  any  money  out  of  them,  Phil  ?" 

"No  —  but  the  other  fellows  did.  That's  my 
luck." 

"Never  mind,  there'll  be  heaps  more  directly  — 
hundreds."  She  stretched  out  her  hand  vaguely 
towards  an  enchanting  distance  —  hill  beyond 
hill,  wood  beyond  wood;  everywhere  the  glimmer 
of  water  in  the  hollows;  everywhere  the  sparkle 
of  fresh  leaf,  the  shining  of  the  birch  trunks 
among  the  firs,  the  greys  and  purples  of  limestone 
rock;  everywhere,  too,  the  disfiguring  stain  of  fire, 
fire  new  or  old,  written,  now  on  the  mouldering 
stumps  of  trees  felled  thirty  years  ago  when  the 
railway  was  making,  now  on  the  young  stems 
of  yesterday. 

"  I  want  to  see  it  all  in  a  moment  of  time/* 
Elizabeth  continued,  still  above  herself.  "An  air- 
ship, you  know,  Philip  —  and  we  should  see  it  all 
in  a  day,  from  here  to  James  Bay.  A  thousand 
miles  of  it  —  stretched  below  us  —  just  waiting 
for  man!  And  we'd  drop  down  into  an  undis- 
covered lake,  and  give  it  a  name  —  one  of  our 
names  —  and  leave  a  letter  under  a  stone.  And 
then  in  a  hundred  years,  when  the  settlers  come. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST  7 

they'd  find  it,  and  your  name  —  or  mine  —  would 
live  forever." 

"I  forbid  you  to  take  any  liberties  with  my 
name,  Elizabeth!  I've  something  better  to  do 
with  it  than  waste  it  on  a  lake  in  —  what  do  you 
call  it?  — the  'Hinterland  of  Ontario.'"  The 
young  man  mocked  his  sister's  tone. 

Elizabeth   laughed   and   was   silent. 

The  train  sped  on,  at  its  steady  pace  of  some 
thirty  miles  an  hour.  The  spring  day  was  alter- 
nately sunny  and  cloudy;  the  temperature  was 
warm,  and  the  leaves  were  rushing  out.  Elizabeth 
Merton  felt  the  spring  in  her  veins,  an  indefinable 
joyousness  and  expectancy;  but  she  was  conscious 
also  of  another  intoxication  —  a  heat  of  romantic 
perception  kindled  in  her  by  this  vast  new  country 
through  which  she  was  passing.  She  was  a 
person  of  much  travel,  and  many  experiences; 
and  had  it  been  prophesied  to  her  a  year  before 
this  date  that  she  could  feel  as  she  was  now  feeling, 
she  would  not  have  believed  it.  She  was  then  in 
Rome,  steeped  in,  ravished  by  the  past  —  assisted 
by  what  is,  in  its  way,  the  most  agreeable  society 
in  Europe.  Here  she  was  absorbed  in  a  rushing 
present;  held  by  the  vision  of  a  colossal  future; 
and  society  had  dropped  out  of  her  ken.  Quebec, 
Montreal  and  Ottawa  had  indeed  made  them- 
selves pleasant  to  her;  she  had  enjoyed  them  all. 


8  LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

But  it  was  in  the  wilderness  that  the  spell  had 
come  upon  her;  in  these  vast  spaces,  some  day 
to  be  the  home  of  a  new  race;  in  these  lakes,  the 
playground  of  the  Canada  of  the  future;  in  these 
fur  stations  and  scattered  log  cabins;  above  all  in 
the  great  railway  linking  east  and  west,  that  she 
and  her  brother  had  come  out  to  see. 

For  they  had  a  peculiar  relation  to  it.  Their 
father  had  been  one  of  its  earliest  and  largest 
shareholders,  might  indeed  be  reckoned  among 
its  founders.  He  had  been  one,  also,  of  a  small 
group  of  very  rich  men  who  had  stood  by  the 
line  in  one  of  the  many  crises  of  its  early  history, 
when  there  was  often  not  enough  money  in  the 
coffers  of  the  company  to  pay  the  weekly  wages 
of  the  navvies  working  on  the  great  iron  road. 
He  was  dead  now,  and  his  property  in  the  line 
had  been  divided  among  his  children.  But  his 
name  and  services  were  not  forgotten  at  Montreal, 
and  when  his  son  and  widowed  daughter  let  it  be 
known  that  they  desired  to  cross  from  Quebec 
to  Vancouver,  and  inquired  what  the  cost  of  a 
private  car  might  be  for  the  journey,  the  authorities 
at  Montreal  insisted  on  placing  one  of  the  official 
cars  at  their  disposal.  So  that  they  were  now 
travelling  as  the  guests  of  the  C.  P.  R.;  and  the 
good  will  of  one  of  the  most  powerful  of  modern 
corporations  went  with  them. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST  9 

They  had  left  Toronto,  on  a  May  evening, 
when  the  orchards  ran,  one  flush  of  white  and 
pink,  from  the  great  lake  to  the  gorge  of  Niagara, 
and  all  along  the  line  northwards  the  white  trilliums 
shone  on  the  grassy  banks  in  the  shadow  of  the 
woods;  while  the  pleasant  Ontario  farms  flitted  by, 
so  mellowed  and  homelike  already,  midway 
between  the  old  life  of  Quebec,  and  this  new, 
raw  West  to  which  they  were  going.  They  had 
passed,  also — but  at  night  and  under  the 
moon  —  through  the  lake  country  which  is  the 
playground  of  Toronto,  as  well  known,  and  as 
plentifully  be-named  as  Westmoreland;  and  then 
at  North  Bay  with  the  sunrise  they  had  plunged 
into  the  wilderness,  —  into  the  thousand  miles 
of  forest  and  lake  that  lie  between  Old  Ontario 
and  Winnipeg. 

And  here  it  was  that  Elizabeth's  enthusiasm 
had  become  in  her  brother's  eyes  a  folly;  that 
something  wild  had  stirred  in  her  blood,  and  sitting 
there  in  her  shady  hat  at  the  rear  of  the  train, 
her  eyes  pursuing  the  great  track  which  her  father 
had  helped  to  bring  into  being,  she  shook  Europe 
from  her,  and  felt  through  her  pulses  the  tremor 
of  one  who  watches  at  a  birth,  and  looks  forward 
to  a  life  to  be 


"Dinner   is   ready,    my   lady 


j> 


10        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

"Thank  Heaven!"  cried  Philip  Gaddesden, 
springing  up.  "Get  some  champagne,  please, 
Yerkes." 

"Philip!  "  said  his  sister  reprovingly,  "it  is  not 
good  for  you  to  have  champagne  every  night." 

Philip  threw  back  his  curly  head,  and 
grinned. 

"  I'll  see  if  I  can  do  w^ithout  it  to-morrow. 
Come  along,  Elizabeth." 

They  passed  through  the  outer  saloon,  with 
its  chintz-covered  sofas  and  chairs,  past  the  two 
little  bedrooms  of  the  car,  and  the  tiny  kitchen 
to  the  dining-room  at  the  further  end.  Here 
stood  a  man  in  steward's  livery  ready  to  serve, 
while  from  the  door  of  the  kitchen  another  older 
man,  thin  and  tanned,  in  a  cook's  white  cap  and 
apron,  looked  benevolently  out. 

"Smells  good,  Yerkes!"  said  Gaddesden  as  he 
passed. 

The  cook  nodded. 

"If  only  her  ladyship  '11  find  something  she 
likes,"  he  said,  not  without  a  slight  tone  of 
reproach. 

"You  hear  that,  Elizabeth.?"  said  her  brother 
as  they  sat  down  to  the  well-spread  board. 

Elizabeth  looked  plaintive.  It  was  one  of  her 
chief  weaknesses  to  wish  to  be  liked  —  adored, 
perhaps,   is   the   better  word  —  by   her   servants 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST         ii 

and  she  generally  accomplished  it.  But  the  price 
of  Yerkes's  affections  was  too  high. 

"It  seems  to  me  that  we  have  only  just  finished 
luncheon,  not  to  speak  of  tea,"  she  said,  looking 
in  dismay  at  the  menu  before  her.  "  Phil,  do 
you  wish  to  see  me  return  home  like  Mrs.  Mel- 
huish  ?" 

Phil  surveyed  his  sister.  Mrs.  Melhuish  was 
the  wife  of  their  local  clergyman  in  Hampshire; 
a  poor  lady  plagued  by  abnormal  weight,  and 
a  heart  disease. 

"You  might  borrow  pounds  from  Mrs.  Mel- 
huish, and  nobody  would  ever  know.  You  really 
are  too  thin,  Lisa  —  a  perfect  scarecrow.  Of 
course  Yerkes  sees  that  he  could  do  a  lot  for  you. 
All  the  same,  that's  a  pretty  gown  you've  got  on 
—  an  awfully  pretty  gown,"  he  repeated  with 
emphasis,  adding  immediately  afterwards  in 
another  tone  —  "Lisa!  —  I  say! — you're  not 
going  to  wear  black  any  more  ?" 

"No" — said  Lady  Merton,  "no  —  I  am  not 
going  to  wear  black  any  more."  The  words 
came  lingeringly  out,  and  as  the  servant  removed 
her  plate,  Elizabeth  turned  to  look  out  of  the 
window  at  the  endless  woods,  a  shadow  on  her 
beautiful  eyes. 

She  was  slenderly  made,  with  a  small  face  and 
head   round  which   the   abundant  hair  was  very 


12        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

smoothly  and  closely  wound.  The  hair  was  of 
a  delicate  brown,  the  complexion  clear,  but 
rather  colourless.  Among  other  young  and  hand- 
some women,  Elizabeth  Merton  made  little  effect; 
like  a  fine  pencil  drawing,  she  required  an  atten- 
tive eye.  The  modelling  of  the  features,  of  the 
brow,  the  cheeks,  the  throat,  was  singularly 
refined,  though  without  a  touch  of  severity;  her 
hands,  with  their  very  long  and  slender  fingers, 
conveyed  the  same  impression.  Her  dress,  though 
dainty,  was  simple  and  inconspicuous,  and  her 
movements,  light,  graceful,  self-controlled,  seemed 
to  show  a  person  of  equable  temperament,  without 
any  strong  emotions.  In  her  light  cheerfulness, 
her  perpetual  interest  in  the  things  about  her, 
she  might  have  reminded  a  spectator  of  some  of 
the  smaller  sea-birds  that  flit  endlessly  from 
wave  to  wave,  for  whom  the  business  of  life 
appears  to  be  summed  up  in  flitting  and  poising. 
The  comparison  would  have  been  an  inadequate 
one.  But  Elizabeth  Merton's  secrets  were  not 
easily  known.  She  could  rave  of  Canada;  she 
rarely  talked  of  herself.  She  had  married,  at 
the  age  of  nineteen,  a  young  Cavalry  oflRcer, 
Sir  Francis  Merton,  who  had  died  of  fever  within 
a  year  of  their  wedding,  on  a  small  West  African 
expedition  for  which  he  had  eagerly  offered  himself. 
Out  of  the  ten  months  of  their  marriage,  they  had 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST         13 

spent  four  together.  Elizabeth  was  now  twenty- 
seven,  and  her  married  Hfe  had  become  to  her  an 
insubstantial  memory.  She  had  been  happy, 
but  in  the  depths  of  the  mind  she  knew  that  she 
might  not  have  been  happy  very  long.  Her 
husband's  piteous  death  had  stamped  upon  her, 
indeed,  a  few  sharp  memories;  she  saw  him  always, 
—  as  the  report  of  a  brother  officer,  present  at 
his  funeral,  had  described  him  —  wrapped  in  the 
Flag,  and  so  lowered  to  his  grave,  in  a  desert 
land.  This  image  effaced  everything  else;  the 
weaknesses  she  knew,  and  those  she  had  begun 
to  guess  at.  But  at  the  same  time  she  had  not 
been  crushed  by  the  tragedy;  she  had  often 
scourged  herself  in  secret  for  the  rapidity  with 
which,  after  it,  life  had  once  more  become 
agreeable  to  her.  She  knew  that  many  people 
thought  her  incapable  of  deep  feeling.  She 
supposed  it  must  be  true.  And  yet  there  were 
moments  when  a  self  within  herself  surprised  and 
startled  her;  not  so  much,  as  yet,  in  connection 
with  persons,  as  with  ideas,  causes  —  oppressions, 
injustices,  helpless  suffering;  or,  as  now,  with  a 
new  nation,  visibly  striking  its  "being  into  bounds." 
During  her  widowhood  she  had  lived  much 
with  her  mother,  and  had  devoted  herself  particu- 
larly to  this  only  brother,  a  delicate  lad  — 
lovable,  self-indulgent  and  provoking  —  for  whom 


14        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

the  unquestioning  devotion  of  two  women 
had  not  been  the  best  of  schools.  An  attack  of 
rheumatic  fever  which  had  seized  him  on  leaving 
Christchurch  had  scared  both  mother  and  sister. 
He  had  recovered,  but  his  health  was  not  yet 
what  it  had  been;  and  as  at  home  it  was  impossible 
to  keep  him  from  playing  golf  all  day,  and  bridge 
all  night,  the  family  doctor,  in  despair,  recom- 
mended travel,  and  Elizabeth  had  offered  to  take 
charge  of  him.  It  was  not  an  easy  task,  for 
although  Philip  was  extremely  fond  of  his  sister, 
as  the  male  head  of  the  family  since  his  father's 
death  he  held  strong  convictions  with  regard  to 
the  natural  supremacy  of  man,  and  would  probably 
never  "double  Cape  Turk."  In  another  year's 
time,  at  the  age  of  four  and  twenty,  he  would 
inherit  the  family  estate,  and  his  mother's  guardian- 
ship would  come  to  an  end.  He  then  intended 
to  be  done  with  petticoat  government,  and  to 
show  these  two  dear  women  a  thing  or  two. 

The  dinner  was  good,  as  usual;  in  Elizabeth's 
eyes,  monstrously  good.  There  was  to  her 
something  repellent  in  such  luxurious  fare  enjoyed 
by  strangers,  on  this  tourist-flight  through  a 
country  so  eloquent  of  man's  hard  wrestle  with 
rock  and  soil,  with  winter  and  the  vdlderness. 
The  bhnds  of  the  car  towards  the  next  carriage 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST         15 

were  rigorously  closed,  that  no  one  might  interfere 
with  the  privacy  of  the  rich;  but  Ehzabeth  had 
drawn  up  the  bHnd  beside  her,  and  looked  occa- 
sionally into  the  evening,  and  that  endless  medley 
of  rock  and  forest  and  lake  which  lay  there  outside, 
under  the  sunset.  Once  she  gazed  out  upon  a 
great  gorge,  through  which  ran  a  noble  river, 
bathed  in  crimson  light;  on  its  way,  no  doubt, 
to  Lake  Superior,  the  vast,  crescent-shaped  lake 
she  had  dreamed  of  in  her  school-room  days, 
over  her  geography  lessons,  and  was  soon  to  see 
with  her  own  eyes.  She  thought  of  the  uncom- 
panioned  beauty  of  the  streams,  as  it  would  be 
when  the  thunder  of  the  train  had  gone  by,  of 
its  distant  sources  in  the  wild,  and  the  loneliness 
of  its  long,  long  journey.  A  little  shiver  stole  upon 
her,  the  old  tremor  of  man  in  presence  of  a  nature 
not  yet  tamed  to  his  needs,  not  yet  identified 
with  his  feelings,  still  full  therefore  of  stealthy  and 
hostile  powers,  creeping  unawares  upon  his  life. 
"This  champagne  is  not  nearly  as  good  as 
last  night,"  said  Philip  discontentedly.  "Yerkes 
must  really  try  for  something  better  at  Winnipeg. 
When  do  we  arrive  .?" 

"Oh,  some  time  to-morrow  evening." 
"What  a  blessing  we're  going  to  bed!"  said  the 
boy,  lighting  his  cigarette.     "You  won't  be  able 
to  bother  me  about  lakes,  Lisa." 


i6        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

But  he  smiled  at  her  as  he  spoke,  and  Elizabeth 
was  so  enchanted  to  notice  the  gradual  passing 
away  of  the  look  of  illness,  the  brightening  of  the 
eye,  and  slight  filling  out  of  the  face,  that  he 
might  tease  her  as  he  pleased. 

Within  an  hour  Philip  Gaddesden  was  stretched 
on  a  comfortable  bed  sound  asleep.  The  two 
servants  had  made  up  berths  in  the  dining-room; 
Elizabeth's  maid  slept  in  the  saloon.  Elizabeth 
herself,  wrapped  in  a  large  cloak,  sat  awhile 
outside,  waiting  for  the  first  sight  of  Lake  Superior. 

It  came  at  last.  A  gleam  of  silver  on  the  left  — 
a  line  of  purple  islands  —  frowning  headlands 
in  front  —  and  out  of  the  interminable  shadow 
of  the  forests,  they  swept  into  a  broad  moonlight. 
Over  high  bridges  and  the  roar  of  rivers,  threading 
innumerable  bays,  burrowing  through  headlands 
and  peninsulas,  now  hanging  over  the  cold 
shining  of  the  water,  now  lost  again  in  the  woods, 
the  train  sped  on  its  wonderful  way.  Elizabeth 
on  her  platform  at  its  rear  was  conscious  of  no 
other  living  creature.  She  seemed  to  be  alone 
with  the  night  and  the  vastness  of  the  lake,  the 
awfulness  of  its  black  and  purple  coast.  As  far 
as  she  could  see,  the  trees  on  its  shores  were  still 
bare;  they  had  temporarily  left  the  spring  behind; 
the  North  seemed  to  have  rushed  upon  her  in  its 
terror  and  desolation.     She  found  herself  imagin- 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST         17 

ing  the  storms  that  sweep  the  lake  in  winter, 
measuring  her  frail  Hfe  against  the  lonehness  and 
boundlessness  around  her.  No  sign  of  man, 
save  in  the  few  lights  of  these  scattered  stations; 
and  yet,  for  long,  her  main  impression  was  one 
of  exultation  in  man's  power  and  skill,  which  bore 
her  on  and  on,  safe,  through  the  conquered 
wilderness. 

Gradually,  however,  this  note  of  feeling  slid 
down  into  something  much  softer  and  sadder. 
She  became  conscious  of  herself,  and  her  personal 
life;  and  little  by  little  her  exultation  passed  into 
yearning;  her  eyes  grew  wet.  For  she  had  no 
one  beside  her  with  whom  to  share  these  secret 
thoughts  and  passions  —  these  fresh  contacts 
with  life  and  nature.  Was  it  always  to  be  so  ? 
There  was  in  her  a  longing,  a  "sehnsucht,"  for 
she  knew  not  what. 

She  could  marry,  of  course,  if  she  wished. 
There  was  a  possibility  in  front  of  her,  of  which 
she  sometimes  thought.  She  thought  of  it  now, 
wistfully  and  kindly;  but  it  scarcely  availed 
against  the  sudden  melancholy,  the  passion  of 
indefinite  yearning  which  had  assailed  her. 

The  night  began  to  cloud  rapidly.  The  moon- 
light died  from  the  lake  and  the  coast.  Soon  a 
wind  sprang  up,  lashing  the  young  spruce  and 
birch  growing  among  the  charred  wreck  of  the  older 


1 8         LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

forest,  through  which  the  railway  had  been  driven. 
Ehzabeth  went  within,  and  she  was  no  sooner 
in  bed  than  the  rain  came  pelting  on  her  window. 
She  lay  sleepless  for  a  long  time,  thinking  now, 
not  of  the  world  outside,  or  of  herself,  but  of  the 
long  train  in  front  of  her,  and  its  freight  of  lives; 
especially  of  the  two  emigrant  cars,  full,  as  she 
had  seen  at  North  Bay,  of  Galicians  and  Russian 
Poles.  She  remembered  the  women's  faces,  and 
the  babies  at  their  breasts.  Were  they  all  asleep, 
tired  out  perhaps  by  long  journeying,  and  soothed 
by  the  noise  of  the  train  ?  Or  were  there  hearts 
among  them  aching  for  some  poor  hovel  left 
behind,  for  a  dead  child  in  a  Carpathian  grave- 
yard ^  —  for  a  lover  f  —  a  father  ?  —  some  bowed 
and  wrinkled  Galician  peasant  whom  the  next 
winter  would  kill  ?  And  were  the  strong,  swarthy 
men  dreaming  of  wealth,  of  the  broad  land  waiting, 
the  free  country,  and  the  equal  laws  ? 

Elizabeth  awoke.  It  was  light  in  her  little 
room.     The  train  was  at  a  standstill.     Winnipeg  ? 

A  subtle  sense  of  something  wrong  stole  upon  her. 
Why  this  murmur  of  voices  round  the  train  ?  She 
pushed  aside  a  corner  of  the  blind  beside  her.  Out- 
side a  railway  cutting,  filled  with  misty  rain — many 
persons  walking  up  and  down,  and  a  babel  of  talk — 

Bewildered,  she  rang  for  her  maid,  an  elderly 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST         19 

and  precise  person  who  had  accompanied  her  on 
many  wanderings. 

"Simpson,  what's  the  matter?  Are  we  near 
Winnipeg  ?" 

"We've  been  standing  here  for  the  last  two 
hours,  my  lady.  I've  been  expecting  to  hear 
you  ring  long  ago." 

Simpson's  tone  implied  that  her  mistress  had 
been  somewhat  crassly  sleeping  while  more 
sensitive  persons  had  been  awake  and  suffering. 

Elizabeth  rubbed  her  eyes.  "  But  what's  wrong, 
Simpson,  and  where  are  we?" 

"Goodness  knows,  my  lady.  We're  hours  away 
from  Winnipeg  —  that's  all  I  know  —  and  we're 
likely  to  stay  here,  by  what  Yerkes  says." 

"Has   there   been   an   accident?" 

Simpson  replied  —  sombrely  —  that  something 
had  happened,  she  didn't  know  what  —  that- 
Yerkes  put  it  down  to  "the  sink-hole,"  which 
according  to  him  was  "always  doing  it" — that 
there  were  two  trains  in  front  of  them  at  a  standstill, 
and  trains  coming  up  every  minute  behind  them. 

"My  dear  Simpson!  —  that  must  be  an  exag- 
geration. There  aren't  trains  every  minute  on 
the  C.  P.  R.     Is  Mr.  Philip  awake?" 

"Not  yet,  my  lady." 

"And  what  on  earth  is  a  sink-hole?"  asked 
Elizabeth. 


CHAPTER  II 

Elizabeth  had  ample  time  during  the  ensuing 
sixteen  hours  for  inquiry  as  to  the  nature  of  sink- 
holes. 

When  she  emerged,  dressed,  into  the  saloon  — 
she  found  Yerkes  looking  out  of  the  window  in  a 
brown  study.  He  was  armed  with  a  dusting 
brush  and  a  white  apron,  but  it  did  not  seem  to 
her  that  he  had  been  making  much  use  of  them. 

"Whatever  is  the  matter,  Yerkes.''  What  is 
a  sink-hole  ?'* 

Yerkes  looked  round. 

"A  sink-hole,  my  lady?"  he  said  slowly  — 
"A  sink-hole,  well,  it's  as  you  may  say  —  a 
muskeg." 

"A  whatP'* 

**A  place  where  you  can't  find  no  bottom,  my 
lady.  This  one's  a  vixen,  she  is!  What  she's 
cost  the  C.  P.  R. !" — he  threw  up  his  hands. 
"And  there's  no  contenting  her  —  the  more  you 
give  her  the  more  she  wants.  They  give  her  ten 
trainloads  of  stuff  a  couple  of  months  ago.  No 
good!     A  bit  of  moist  weather  and  there  she  is 

20 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST        21 

at  It  again.  Let  an  engine  and  two  carriages 
through  last  night  —  ten  o'clock!" 

"Gracious!  Was  anybody  hurt?  What  —  a 
kind  of  bog  ?  —  a  quicksand  ?" 

"Well,"  said  Yerkes,  resuming  his  dusting, 
and  speaking  with  polite  obstinacy,  "muskegs  is 
what  they  call  'em  in  these  parts.  They'll  have 
to  divert  the  line.  I  tell  'em  so,  scores  of  times. 
She  was  at  this  game  last  year.  Held  me  up 
twenty-one  hours  last  fall." 

When  Yerkes  was  travelling  he  spoke  in  a 
representative  capacity.     He  was  the  line. 

"How  many  trains  ahead  of  us  are  there* 
Yerkes  ?" 

"Two  as  I  know  on  —  may  be  more." 

"And  behind?" 

"Three  or  four,  my  lady." 

"And  how  long  are  we  likely  to  be  kept?" 

"Can't  say.  They've  been  at  her  ten  hours. 
She  don't  generally  let  anyone  over  her  under  a 
good    twenty  —  or    twenty-four." 

"Yerkes! — what  will  Mr.  Gaddesden  say? 
And  it's  so  damp  and  horrid." 

Elizabeth  looked  at  the  outside  prospect  in 
dismay.  The  rain  was  drizzling  down.  The 
passengers  walking  up  and  down  the  line  were 
in  heavy  overcoats  with  their  collars  turned  up. 
To  the  left  of  the  line  there  was  a  misty  glimpse 


22        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

of  water  over  a  foreground  of  charred  stumps. 
On  the  other  side  rose  a  bank  of  scrubby  wood, 
broken  by  a  patch  of  clearing,  which  held  a  rude 
log-cabin.  What  was  she  to  do  with  Philip 
all  day  ? 

Suddenly  a  cow  appeared  on  the  patch  of  grass 
round  the  log  hut.  With  a  sound  of  jubilation, 
Yerkes  threw  down  his  dusting  brush  and  rushed 
out  of  the  car.  Elizabeth  watched  him  pursue  the 
cow,  and  disappear  round  a  corner.  What  on 
earth  was  he  about  ^ 

Philip  had  apparently  not  yet  been  called.  He 
was  asleep,  and  Yerkes  had  let  well  alone.  But 
he  must  soon  awake  to  the- situation,  and  the 
problem  of  his  entertainment  would  begin.  Eliza- 
beth took  up  the  guide-book  and  with  difficulty 
made  out  that  they  were  about  a  hundred  miles 
from  Winnipeg.  Somewhere  near  Rainy  Lake 
apparently.     What  a  foolishly  appropriate  name! 

-Hi!  — hi! " 

The  shout  startled  her.  Looking  out  she  saw 
a  group  of  passengers  grinning,  and  Yerkes 
running  hard  for  the  car,  holding  something  in 
his  hand,  and  pursued  by  a  man  in  a  slouch  hat, 
who  seemed  to  be  swearing.  Yerkes  dashed  into 
the  car,  deposited  his  booty  in  the  kitchen,  and 
standing  in  the  doorway  faced  the  enemy.  A 
terrific  babel  arose. 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST        23 

Elizabeth  appeared  in  the  passage  and 
demanded   to   know  what  had   happened. 

"Ail  right,  my  lady,"  said  Yerkes,  mopping 
his  forehead.  "I've  only  been  and  milked  his 
cow.  No  saying  where  I'd  have  got  any  milk 
this  side  of  Winnipeg  if  I  hadn't." 

"  But,  Yerkes,  he  doesn't  seem  to  like  it." 

"Oh,  that's  all  right,  my  lady." 

But  the  settler  was  now  on  the  steps  of  the  car 
gesticulating  and  scolding,  in  what  Elizabeth 
guessed  to  be  a  Scandinavian  tongue.  He  was 
indeed  a  gigantic  Swede,  furiously  angry,  and 
Elizabeth  had  thoughts  of  bearding  him  herself 
and  restoring  the  milk,  when  some  mysterious 
transaction  involving  coin  passed  suddenly 
between  the  two  men.  The  Swede  stopped 
short  in  the  midst  of  a  sentence,  pocketed  some- 
thing, and  made  off  sulkily  for  the  log  hut. 
Yerkes,  with  a  smile,  and  a  wink  to  the  bystanders, 
retired  triumphant  on  his  prey. 

Elizabeth,  standing  at  the  door  of  the  kitchen, 
inquired  if  supplies  were  likely  to  run  short. 

"Not  in  this  car,"  said  Yerkes,  with  emphasis. 
"What  they  II  do"  —  a  jerk  of  his  thumb  towards 
the  rest  of  the  train  in  front  —  "can't  say." 

"Of  course  we  shall  have  to  give  them  food!" 
cried  Lady  Merton,  delighted  at  the  thought  of 
getting  rid  of  some  of  their  superfluities. 


24        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

Yerkes  showed  a  stolid  face. 

"The  C.  P.  R.'U  have  to  feed  'em  —  must. 
That's  the  regulation.  Accident  —  free  meals. 
That  hasn't  nothing  to  do  with  me.  They  don't 
come  poaching  on  my  ground.  I  say,  look  out! 
Do  yer  call  that  bacon,  or  bufiFaler  steaks  .?" 

And  Yerkes  rushed  upon  his  subordinate, 
Bettany,  who  was  cutting  the  breakfast  bacon 
with  undue  thickness,  and  took  the  thing  in  hand 
himself.  The  crushed  Bettany,  who  was  never 
allowed  to  finish  anything,  disappeared  hastily 
in  order  to  answer  the  electric  bell  which  was 
ringing  madly  from  Philip  Gaddesden's  berth. 

"Conductor!"  cried  a  voice  from  the  inner 
platform  outside  the  dining-room  and  next  the 
train. 

"And  what  might  you  be  wanting,  sir.?"  said 
Bettany  jauntily,  opening  the  door  to  the  visitor. 
Bettany  was  a  small  man,  with  thin  harrassed 
features  and  a  fragment  of  beard,  glib  of  speech 
towards  everybody  but  Yerkes. 

"Your  conductor  got  some  milk,  I  think,  from 
that  cabin." 

"He  did  —  but  only  enough  for  ourselves. 
Sorry  we  can't  oblige  you." 

"All  the  same,  I  am  going  to  beg  some  of  it. 
May  I  speak  to  the  gentleman  ?" 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        25 

"Mr.  Gaddesden,  sir,  is  dressing.  The  steward 
will  attend  to  you." 

And  Bettany  retired  ceremoniously  in  favour 
of  Yerkes,  who  hearing  voices  had  come  out  of 
his  den. 

"  I  have  come  to  ask  for  some  fresh  milk  for  a 
baby  in  the  emigrant  car,"  said  the  stranger, 
"Looks  sick,  and  the  mother's  been  crying. 
They've  only  got  tinned  milk  in  the  restaurant 
and  the  child  won't  touch  it." 

"Sorry  it's  that  particular,  sir.  But  I've  got 
only  what  I  want." 

"Yerkes!"  cried  Elizabeth  Merton,  in  the 
background.  "Of  course  the  baby  must  have 
it.     Give     it     to    the     gentleman,      please,      at 


once." 


The  stranger  removed  his  hat  and  stepped  into 
the  tiny  dining-room  where  Elizabeth  was 
standing.  He  was  tall  and  fair-skinned,  with  a 
blonde  moustache,  and  very  blue  eyes.  He  spoke 
—  for  an  English  ear  —  with  the  slight  accent 
which  on  the  Canadian  side  of  the  border  still 
proclaims  the  neighbourhood  of  the  States. 

"I  am  sorry  to  trouble  you,  madam,"  he  said, 
with  deference.  "  But  the  child  seems  very 
weakly,  and  the  mother  herself  has  nothing  to 
give  it.  It  was  the  conductor  of  the  restaurant 
car  who  sent  me  here." 


26        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

"We  shall  be  delighted,"  said  Lady  Merton, 
eagerly.  "May  I  come  with  you,  if  you  are  going 
to  take  it  ?  Perhaps  I  could  do  something  for 
the  mother," 

The  stranger  hesitated   a  moment. 

"An  emigrant  car  full  of  Galicians  is  rather  a 
rough  sort  of  place  —  especially  at  this  early 
hour  in  the  morning.     But  if  you  don't  mind " 

"I  don't  mind  anything.  Yerkes,  is  that  all 
the  milk  V 

"All  to  speak  of,  my  lady,  "said  Yerkes,  nimbly 
retreating  to  his  den. 

Elizabeth  shook  her  head  as  she  looked  at  the 
milk.     But  her  visitor  laughed. 

"The  baby  won't  get  through  that  to-day. 
It's  a  regular  little  scarecrow.  I  shouldn't  think 
the  mother'll  rear  it." 

They  stepped  out  on  to  the  line.  The  drizzle 
descended  on  Lady  Merton's  bare  head  and 
grey  travelling  dress. 

"You  ought  to  have  an  umbrella,"  said  the 
Canadian,  looking  at  her  in  some  embarrassment. 
And  he  ran  back  to  the  car  for  one.  Then, 
while  she  carried  the  milk  carefully  in  both  hands, 
he  held  the  umbrella  over  her,  and  they  passed 
through  the  groups  of  passengers  who  were 
strolling  disconsolately  up  and  down  the  line  in 
spite  of  the  wet,  or  exchanging  lamentations  with 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST        27 

others  from  two  more  stranded  trains,  one  drawn 
up    alongside,   the   other   behind. 

Many  glances  were  levelled  at  the  slight  English- 
woman, with  the  delicately  pale  face,  and  at  the 
man  escorting  her.  Elizabeth  meanwhile  was 
putting  questions.  How  long  would  they  be 
detained ,?  Her  brother  with  whom  she  was 
travelling  was  not  at  all  strong.  Unconsciously, 
perhaps,  her  voice  took  a  note  of  complaint. 

"  Well,  we  can't  any  of  us  cross  —  can  we  ?  — 
till  they  come  to  some  bottom  in  the  sink-hole,'* 
said  the  Canadian,  interrupting  her  a  trifle  bluntly. 

Elizabeth  laughed.  "We  may  be  here  then 
till  night." 

"Possibly.     But  you'll  be  the  first  over." 

"  How  .?     There  are  some  trains  in  front." 

"That  doesn't  matter.  They'll  move  you  up. 
They're  very  vexed  it  should  have  happened  to 
you." 

Elizabeth  felt  a  trifle  uncomfortable.  Was 
the  dear  young  man  tilting  at  the  idle  rich  —  and 
the  corrupt  Old  World  ?  She  stole  a  glance  at 
him,  but  perceived  only  that  in  his  own  tanned 
and  sunburnt  way  he  was  a  remarkably  handsome 
well-made  fellow,  built  on  a  rather  larger  scale  than 
the  Canadians  she  had  so  far  seen.  A  farmer  .'* 
His  manners  were  not  countrified.  But  a  farmer  in 
Canada  or  the  States  may  be  of  all  social  grades. 


28        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

By  this  time  they  had  reached  the  emigrant 
car,  the  conductor  of  which  was  standing  on  the 
steps.  He  was  loth  to  allow  Lady  Merton  to 
enter,  but  Elizabeth  persisted.  Her  companion 
led  the  way,  pushing  through  a  smoking  group  of 
dark-faced  men  hanging  round  the  entrance. 

Inside,  the  car  was  thick,  indeed,  with  smoke 
and  the  heavy  exhalations  of  the  night.  Men  and 
women  were  sitting  on  the  wooden  benches;  some 
women  were  cooking  in  the  tiny  stove-room 
attached  to  the  car;  children,  half  naked  and 
unw^ashed,  were  playing  on  the  floor;  here  and 
there  a  man  was  still  asleep;  while  one  old  man 
was  painfully  conning  a  paper  of  "Homestead 
Regulations"  which  had  been  given  him  at  Mon- 
treal, a  lad  of  eighteen  helping  him;  and  close 
by  another  lad  was  writing  a  letter,  his  eyes  passing 
dreamily  from  the  paper  to  the  Canadian  landscape 
outside,  of  which  he  was  clearly  not  conscious. 
In  a  corner,  surrounded  by  three  or  four  other 
women,  was  the  mother  they  had  come  to  seek. 
She  held  a  wailing  baby  of  about  a  year  old  in 
her  arms.  At  the  sight  of  Elizabeth,  the  child 
stopped  its  wailing,  and  lay  breathing  fast  and 
feebly,  its  large  bright  eyes  fixed  on  the  new-comer. 
The  mother  turned  away  abruptly.  It  was  not 
unusual  for  persons  from  the  parlour-cars  to  ask 
leave  to  walk  through  the  emigrants*. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        29 

But  Elizabeth's  companion  said  a  few  words 
to  her,  apparently  in  Russian,  and  Elizabeth, 
stooping  over  her,  held  out  the  milk.  Then  a 
dark  face  reluctantly  showed  itself,  and  great 
black  eyes,  in  deep,  lined  sockets;  eyes  rather  of 
a  race  than  a  person,  hardly  conscious,  hardly 
individualised,  yet  most  poignant,  expressing 
some  feeling,  remote  and  inarticulate,  that  roused 
Elizabeth's.  She  called  to  the  conductor  for  a 
cup  and  a  spoon;  she  made  her  way  into  the 
malodorous  kitchen,  and  got  some  warm  water 
and  sugar;  then  kneeling  by  the  child,  she  put  a 
spoonful  of  the  diluted  and  sweetened  milk  into 
the  mother's  hand. 

"Was  it  foolish  of  me  to  offer  her  that  money  ?" 
said  Elizabeth  with  flushed  cheeks  as  they  walked 
back  through  the  rain.  "They  looked  so  terribly 
poor." 

The  Canadian  smiled. 

"I  daresay  it  didn't  do  any  harm,"  he  said 
indulgently.  "  But  they  are  probably  not  poor 
at  all.  The  Galicians  generally  bring  in  quite 
a  fair  sum.  And  after  a  year  or  two  they  begin 
to  be  rich.  They  never  spend  a  farthing  they  can 
help.  It  costs  money  —  or  time  —  to  be  clean, 
so  they  remain  dirty.  Perhaps  we  shall  teach 
them  —  after  a  bit." 


30        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

His  companion  looked  at  him  with  a  shy  but 
friendly  curiosity. 

"How  did  you  come  to  know  Russian  ?" 
"When  I  was  a  child  there  were  some  Russian 
Poles  on  the  next  farm  to  us.  I  used  to  play  with 
the  boys,  and  learnt  a  little.  The  conductor 
called  me  in  this  morning  to  interpret.  These 
people  come  from  the  Russian  side  of  the  Carpa- 
thians." 

"Then  you  are  a  Canadian  yourself.?  —  from 
the  West.?" 

"I  was  born  in  Manitoba." 
"I  am  quite  in  love  with  your  country!'* 
Elizabeth   paused   beside  the  steps  leading  to 
their  car.     As  she  spoke,  her  brown  eyes  lit  up,  and 
all  her  small  features   ran  over,   suddenly,  with 
life  and  charm. 

"Yes,  it's  a  good  country,"  said  the  Canadian, 
rather  drily.  "It's  going  to  be  a  great  country. 
Is   this   your   first   visit.?" 

But  the  conversation  was  interrupted  by  a 
reproachful  appeal  from  Yerkes. 

"  Breakfast,  my  lady,  has  been  hotted  twice." 
The  Canadian  looked  at  Elizabeth  curiously, 
lifted  his  hat,  and  went  away. 

"Well,  if  this  doesn't  take  the  cake!"  said 
Philip  Gaddesden,  throwing  himself  disconsolately 
into    an    armchair.     "I    bet   you,    Elizabeth,   we 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST        31 

shall  be  here  forty-eight  hours.  And  this  damp 
goes  through  one." 

The  young  man  shivered,  as  he  looked  petulantly 
out  through  the  open  doorway  of  the  car  to  the 
wet  woods  beyond.  Elizabeth  surveyed  him  with 
some  anxiety.  Like  herself  he  was  small,  and 
lightly  built.  But  his  features  were  much  less 
regular  than  hers;  the  chin  and  nose  were  child- 
ishly tilted,  the  eyes  too  prominent.  His  bright 
colour,  however  —  (mother  and  sister  could  well 
have  dispensed  with  that  touch  of  vivid  red  on  the 
cheeks!) — his  curly  hair,  and  his  boyish  ways 
made  him  personally  attractive;  while  in  his 
moments  of  physical  weakness,  his  evident  resent- 
ment of  Nature's  treatment  of  him,  and  angry 
determination  to  get  the  best  of  her,  had  a  touch 
of  something  that  was  pathetic  —  that  appealed. 

Elizabeth  brought  a  rug  and  wrapped  it  round 
him.  But  she  did  not  try  to  console  him;  she  looked 
round  for  something  or  someone  to  amuse  him. 

On  the  line,  just  beyond  the  railed  platform 
of  the  car,  a  group  of  men  were  lounging  and 
smoking.  One  of  them  was  her  acquaintance  of 
the  morning.  Elizabeth,  standing  on  the  plat- 
form waited  till  he  turned  in  her  direction  — 
caught  his  eye,  and  beckoned.  He  came  with 
alacrity.  She  stooped  over  the  rail  to  speak  to 
him. 


32        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

"I'm  afraid  you'll  think  it  very  absurd"  — 
her  shy  smile  broke  again  —  "but  do  you  think 
there's  anyone  in  this  train  who  plays  bridge?" 

He  laughed, 

"Certainly.  There  is  a  game  going  on  at  this 
moment  in  the  car  behind  you." 

"Is  it  —  is  it  anybody  —  we  could  ask  to 
luncheon  ?  —  who'd  come,  I  mean,"  she  added, 
hurriedly. 

"I  should  think  they'd  come — I  should  think 
they'd  be  glad.  Your  cook,  Yerkes,  is  famous 
on  the  line.  I  know  two  of  the  people  playing. 
They   are   Members   of  Parliament." 

"Oh!  then  perhaps  I  know  them  too,"  cried 
Eliza-beth,  brightening. 

He  laughed  again. 

"The  Dominion  Parliament,  I  mean."  He 
named  two  towns  in  Manitoba,  while  Lady 
Merton's  pink  flush  showed  her  conscious  of 
having  betrayed  her  English  insularity.  "Shall 
I  introduce  you  .?" 

"Please!  —  if  you  find  an  opportunity.  It's 
for  my  brother.     He's  recovering  from  an  illness." 

"And  you  want  to  cheer  him  up.  Of  course. 
Well,  he'll  want  it  to-day."  The  young  man 
looked  round  him,  at  the  line  strewn  with  unsightly 
debris,  the  ugly  cutting  which  blocked  the  view, 
and  the  mists  up-curling  from  the  woods;  then  at 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        -^^ 

the  slight  figure  beside  him.  The  corners  of  his 
mouth  tried  not  to  laugh.  "I  am  afraid  you 
are  not  going  to  like  Canada,  if  it  treats  you 
like  this." 

"IVe  liked  every  minute  of  it  up  till  now," 
said  Elizabeth  warmly.  "Can  you  tell  me  — 
I  should  like  to  know  —  who  all  these  people 
are?"  She  waved  her  hand  towards  the  groups 
walking  up  and  down. 

"Well,  you  see,"  said  the  Canadian  after  a 
moment's  hesitation,    "Canada's    a    big  place!'* 

He  looked  round  on  her  with  a  smile  so  broad 
and  sudden  that  Elizabeth  felt  a  heat  rising  in  her 
cheeks.  Her  question  had  no  doubt  been  a 
little  naive. 

But  the  young  man  hurried  on,  composing  his 
face  quickly. 

"Some  of  them,  of  course,  are  tourists  like 
yourselves.  But  I  do  know  a  few  of  them.  That 
man  in  the  clerical  coat,  and  the  round  collar,  is 
Father  Henty  —  a  Jesuit  well  known  in  Winnipeg 
—  a  great  man  among  the  Catholics  here.'* 

"  But  a  disappointed  one,"  said  Lady  Merton. 

The  Canadian  looked  surprised.  Elizabeth, 
proud  of  her  knowledge,  went  on: 

"Isn't  it  true  the  Catholics  hoped  to  conquer 
the  Northwest  —  and  so  —  with  Ouebec  —  to 
govern  you  all  t     And  now  the  English  and  Amer- 


34        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

ican  immigration  has  spoilt  all  their  chances  — 
poor  things!" 

"That's  about  it.  Did  they  tell  you  that  in 
Toronto  ?  '* 

Elizabeth  stiffened.  The  slight  persistent  tone 
of  mockery  in  the  young  man's  voice  was  beginning 
to  offend  her. 

"And  the  others?"  she  said,  without  noticing 
his  question. 

It  was  the  Canadian's  turn  to  redden.  He 
changed  his  tone. 

"  —  The  man  next  him  is  a  professor  at  the 
Manitoba  University.  The  gentleman  in  the 
brown  suit  is  going  to  Vancouver  to  look  after  some 
big  lumber  leases  he  took  out  last  year.  And  that 
little  man  in  the  Panama  hat  has  been  keeping 
us  all  alive.  He's  been  prospecting  for  silver 
in  New  Ontario  —  thinks  he's  going  to  make 
his  fortune  in  a  week." 

"Oh,  but  that  will  do  exactly  for  my  brother!" 
cried    Elizabeth,    delighted.     "Please    introduce 


us. 


And  hurrying  back  into  the  car  she  burst  upon 
the  discontented  gentleman  within.  Philip,  who 
was  just  about  to  sally  forth  into  the  damp, 
against  the  entreaties  of  his  servant,  and  take 
his  turn  at  shying  stones  at  a  bottle  on  the  line, 
was  appeased  by  her  report,  and  was  soon  seated. 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST        35 

talking  toy  speculation,  with  a  bronzed  and  brawny 
person,  who  watched  the  young  Englishman,  as 
they  chatted,  out  of  a  pair  of  humorous  eyes. 
Philip  believed  himself  a  great  financier,  but  was 
not  in  truth  either  very  shrewd  or  very  daring, 
and  his  various  coups  or  losses  generally  left  his 
exchequer  at  the  end  of  the  year  pretty  much 
what  it  had  been  the  year  before.  But  the  stranger, 
who  seemed  to  have  staked  out  claims  at  one 
time  or  another,  across  the  whole  face  of  the 
continent,  from  Klondyke  to  Nova  Scotia,  kept 
up  a  mining  talk  that  held  him  enthralled;  and 
Elizabeth  breathed  freely. 

She  returned  to  the  platform.  The  scene  was 
triste,  but  the  rain  had  for  the  moment  stopped. 
She  hailed  an  official  passing  by,  and  asked  if 
there  w^as  any  chance  of  their  soon  going  on. 
The  man  smiled  and  shook  his  head. 

Her  Canadian  acquaintance,  who  was  standing 
near,  came  up  to  the  car  as  he  heard  her  question. 

"I  have  just  seen  a  divisional  superintendent. 
We  may  get  on  about  nine  o'clock  to-night.'* 

"And  it  is  now  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning," 
sighed  Lady  Merton.  "Well!  — I  think  a  little 
exercise  would  be  a  good  thing." 

And  she  descended  the  steps  of  the  car.  The 
Canadian  hesitated. 

"Would  you  allow  me  to  walk  with  you?"  he 


36        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

said,  with  formality.  "I  might  perhaps  be  able 
to  tell  you  a  few  things.     I  belong  to  the  railway." 

"I  shall  be  greatly  obliged,"  said  Elizabeth, 
cordially.  "Do  you  mean  that  you  are  an 
official ?" 

"I  am  an  engineer  —  in  charge  of  some  con- 
struction work  in  the  Rockies." 

Lady   Merton's    face    brightened. 

"Indeed!  I  think  that  must  be  one  of  the 
most  interesting  things  in  the  world  to  be." 

The  Canadian's  eyebrows  lifted  a  little. 

"I  don't  know  that  I  ever  thought  of  it  like 
that,"  he  said,  half  smiling.  "It's  good  work  — 
but  I've  done  things  a  good  deal  livelier  in  my 


time. 


"You've  not  always  been  an  engineer?" 
"Very  few  people  are  always  'anything'  in 
Canada,"  he  said,  laughing.  "  It's  like  the  States. 
One  tries  a  lot  of  things.  Oh,  I  was  trained  as 
an  engineer  —  at  Montreal.  But  directly  I  had 
finished  with  that  I  went  off  to  Klondyke.  I  made 
a  bit  of  money  —  came  back  —  and  lost  it  all, 
in  a  milling  business  — over  there"  — he  pointed 
eastwards  —  "on  the  Lake  of  the  Woods.  My 
partner  cheated  me.  Then  I  went  exploring  to 
the  north,  and  took  a  Government  job  at  the  same 
time  —  paying  treaty  money  to  the  Indians. 
Then,  five  years  ago,  I  got  work  for  the  C.  P.  R. 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST        ^-j 

But  I  shall  cut  it  before  long.  I've  saved  some 
money  again.  I  shall  take  up  land,  and  go  into 
politics." 

"Politics?"  repeated  Elizabeth,  vv^ishing  she 
might  some  day  know  what  politics  meant  in 
Canada.  "You're  not  married.?"  she  added 
pleasantly. 

"I  am  not  married." 

"And   may   I   ask  your  name.^*" 

His  name,  it  seemed,  was  George  Anderson,  and 
presently  as  they  walked  up  and  down  he  became 
somewhat  communicative  about  himself,  though 
always  within  the  limits,  as  it  seemed  to  her, 
of  a  natural  dignity,  which  developed  indeed  as 
their  acquaintance  progressed.  He  told  her  tales, 
especially,  of  his  Indian  journeys  through  the 
wilds  about  the  Athabasca  and  Mackenzie  rivers, 
in  search  of  remote  Indian  settlements  —  that 
the  word  of  England  to  the  red  man  might  be 
kept;  and  his  graphic  talk  called  up  before  her 
the  vision  of  a  northern  wilderness,  even  wilder 
and  remoter  than  that  she  had  just  passed  through, 
where  yet  the  earth  teemed  with  lakes  and  timber 
and  trout-bearing  streams,  and  where  —  "we 
shall  grow  corn  some  day,"  as  he  presently 
informed  her.  "In  twenty  years  they  will  have 
developed  seed  that  will  ripen  three  weeks  earlier 
than   wheat   does   now   in    Manitoba.     Then   we 


38         LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

shall  settle  that  country  —  right  away!  —  to  the 
far  north.'*  His  tone  stirred  and  deepened. 
A  little  while  before,  it  had  seemed  to  her  that 
her  tourist  enthusiasm  amused  him.  Yet  by 
flashes,  she  began  to  feel  in  him  something,  beside 
which  her  own  raptures  fell  silent.  Had  she, 
after  all,  hit  upon  a  man  —  a  practical  man  — 
who  was  yet  conscious  of  the  romance  of  Canada  ? 

Presently  she  asked  him  if  there  was  no  one 
dependent  on  him  —  no  mother  ^  —  or  sisters  .? 

"I  have  two  brothers  —  in  the  Government 
service  at  Ottawa.     I  had  four  sisters.** 

"Are  they  married  V* 

"They  are  dead,"  he  said,  slowly.  "They  and 
my  mother  were  burnt  to  death.'* 

She  exclaimed.  Her  brown  eyes  turned  upon 
him  —  all    sudden    horror    and    compassion. 

"It  was  a  farmhouse  where  we  were  living  — 
and  it  took  fire.  Mother  and  sisters  had  no  time 
to  escape.  It  was  early  morning.  I  was  a  boy 
of  eighteen,  and  was  out  on  the  farm  doing  my 
chores.  When  I  saw  smoke  and  came  back,  the 
house  was  a  burning  mass,  and  —  it  was  all  over.'* 

"Where  was  your  father  ?'* 

"My  father  is  dead." 

"But  he  was  there  —  at  the  time  of  the  fire  .'*'* 

"Yes.     He  was  there." 

He  had  suddenly  ceased  to  be  communicative, 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        39 

and  she  instinctively  asked  no  more  questions, 
except  as  to  the  cause  of  the  conflagration. 

"Probably  an  explosion  of  coal-oil.  It  was 
sometimes  used  to  light  the  fire  with  in  the  morning." 

"How  very,  very  terrible!"  she  said  gently, 
after  a  moment,  as  though  she  felt  it.  "  Did  you 
stay  on  at  the  farm  .?" 

"I  brought  up  my  two  brothers.  They  were 
on  a  visit  to  some  neighbours  at  the  time  of  the 
fire.     We  stayed  on  three  years." 

"With  your  father.?" 

"No;  we  three  alone." 

She  felt  vaguely  puzzled;  but  before  she  could 
turn  to  another  subject,  he  had  added  — 

"There  was  nothing  else  for  us  to  do.  We  had 
no  money  and  no  relations  —  nothing  but  the 
land.  So  we  had  to  work  it  —  and  we  managed. 
But  after  three  years  we'd  saved  a  little  money, 
and  we  wanted  to  get  a  bit  more  education.  So 
we  sold  the  land  and  moved  up  to  Montreal." 

"  How  old  were  the  brothers  when  you  took  on 
the  farm  ?" 

"Thirteen  —  and  fifteen." 

"Wonderful!"  she  exclaimed.  "You  must  be 
proud." 

He  laughed  out. 

"Why,  that  kind  of  thing's  done  every  day  in 
this  country!     You  can't  idle  in  Canada." 


40        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

They  had  turned  back  towards  the  train.  In 
the  doorway  of  the  car  sat  Philip  Gaddesden 
lounging  and  smoking,  enveloped  in  a  fur  coat, 
his  knees  covered  with  a  magnificent  fur  rug.  A 
whisky  and  soda  had  just  been  placed  at  his 
right  hand.  Elizabeth  thought  —  "He  said  that 
because  he  had  seen  Philip."  But  when  she 
looked  at  him,  she  withdrew  her  supposition. 
His  eyes  were  not  on  the  car,  and  he  was  evidently 
thinking  of  something  else. 

"I  hope  your  brother  will  take  no  harm,"  he 
said  to  her,  as  they  approached  the  car.  "Can 
I  be  of  any  service  to  you  in  Winnipeg  ?" 

"Oh,  thank  you.  We  have  some  introduc- 
tions   " 


» 


"  Of  course.     But  if  I  can  —  let  me  know. 

An  official  came  along  the  line,  with  a  packet 
in  his  hand.  At  sight  of  Elizabeth  he  stopped  and 
raised  his  hat. 

"Am  I  speaking  to  Lady  Merton .?  I  have 
some  letters  here,  that  have  been  waiting  for 
you  at  Winnipeg,  and  they've  sent  them  out  to 
you." 

He  placed  the  packet  in  her  hand.  The  Cana- 
dian moved  away,  but  not  before  Elizabeth  had 
seen  again  the  veiled  amusement  in  his  eyes.  It 
seemed  to  him  comic,  no  doubt,  that  the  idlers  of 
the    world    should    be    so    royally    treated.     But 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        41 

after  all  —  she  drew  herself  up  —  her  father 
had  been  no  idler. 

She  hastened  to  her  brother;  and  they  fell  upon 
their  letters. 

"Oh,  Philip!'*  —  she  said  presently,  looking 
up  —  "Philip!  Arthur  Delaine  meets  us  at  Win- 
nipeg.'* 

"  Does  he  ?  Does  he  ? "  repeated  the  young  man, 
laughing.     "I  say,  Lisa! " 

Elizabeth  took  no  notice  of  her  brother's 
teasing  tone.  Nor  did  her  voice,  as  she  proceeded 
to  read  him  the  letter  she  held  in  her  hand,  throw 
any  light  upon  her  own  feelings  with  regard  to  it. 

The  weary  day  passed.  The  emigrants  were 
consoled  by  free  meals;  and  the  delicate  baby 
throve  on  the  Swede's  ravished  milk.  For  the 
rest,  the  people  in  the  various  trains  made  rapid 
acquaintance  with  each  other;  bridge  went  merrily 
in  more  than  one  car,  and  the  general  inconveni- 
ence was  borne  with  much  philosophy,  even  by 
Gaddesden.  At  last,  when  darkness  had  long 
fallen,  the  train  to  which  the  private  car  was 
attached  moved  slowly  forward  amid  cheers  of 
the  bystanders. 

Elizabeth  and  her  brother  were  on  the  observa- 
tion platform,  with  the  Canadian,  whom  with 
some  difficulty  they  had  persuaded  to  share  their 
dinner. 


42        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

"I  told  you"  —  said  Anderson  —  "that  you 
would  be  passed  over  first."  He  pointed  to  two 
other  trains  in  front  that  had  been  shunted  to 
make  room  for  them. 

Elizabeth  turned  to  him  a  little  proudly. 

"  But  I  should  like  to  say  —  it's  not  for  our 
own  sakes  —  not  in  the  least!  —  it  is  for  my 
father,  that  they  are  so  polite  to  us." 

"I  know  —  of  course  I  know!"  was  the  quick 
response.  "I  have  been  talking  to  some  of  our 
staff,"  he  went  on,  smiling.  "They  would  do 
anything  for  you.  Perhaps  you  don't  understand. 
You  are  the  guests  of  the  railway.  And  I  too 
belong  to  the  railway.  I  am  a  very  humble  person, 
but " 

"You  also  would  do  anything  for  us?"  asked 
Elizabeth,  with  her  soft  laugh.  "How  kind  you 
all  are!" 

She  looked  charming  as  she  said  it  —  her  face 
and  head  lit  up  by  the  line  of  flaring  lights  through 
which  they  were  slowly  passing.  The  line  was 
crowded  with  dark-faced  navvies,  watching  the 
passage  of  the  train  as  it  crept  forward. 

One  of  the  officials  in  command  leapt  up  on 
the  platform  of  the  car,  and  introduced  himself. 
He  was  worn  out  with  the  day's  labour,  but 
triumphant.  "  It's  all  right  now  —  but,  my  word ! 
the  stuff  we've  thrown  in ! " 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        43 

He  and  Anderson  began  some  rapid  technical 
talk.  Slowly,  they  passed  over  the  quicksand 
which  in  the  morning  had  engulfed  half  a  train; 
amid  the  flare  of  torches,  and  the  murmur  of 
strange  speech,  from  the  Galician  and  Italian 
labourers,  who  rested  on  their  picks  and  stared 
and  laughed,  as  they  went  safely  by. 

"How  I  love  adventures!"  cried  Elizabeth, 
clasping  her  hands. 

"Even  little  ones  ?"  said  the  Canadian,  smiling. 
But  this  time  she  was  not  conscious  of  any  note 
of  irony  in  his  manner,  rather  of  a  kind  protecting- 
ness  —  more  pronounced,  perhaps,  than  it  would 
have  been  in  an  Englishman,  at  the  same  stage 
of  acquaintance.  But  Elizabeth  liked  it;  she 
liked,  too,  the  fine  bare  head  that  the  torchlight 
revealed;  and  the  general  impression  of  varied  life 
that  the  man's  personality  produced  upon  her. 
Her  sympathies,  her  imagination  were  all  tremb- 
ling towards  the  Canadians,  no  less  than  towards 
their  country. 


CHAPTER  III 

"Mr.  Delaine,  sir?" 

The  gentleman  so  addressed  turned  to  see  the 
substantial  form  of  Simpson  at  his  elbow.  They 
were  both  standing  in  the  spacious  hall  of  the 
C.  P.  R.  Hotel  adjoining  the  station  at  Winnipeg. 

"Her  ladyship,  sir,  asked  me  to  tell  you  she 
would  be  down  directly.  And  would  you  please 
wait  for  her,  and  take  her  to  see  the  place  where 
the  emigrants  come.  She  doesn't  think  Mr. 
Gaddesden  will  be  down  till  luncheon-time." 

Arthur  Delaine  thanked  the  speaker  for  her 
information,  and  then  sat  down  in  a  comfortable 
corner.  Times  in  hand,  to  wait  for  Lady 
Merton. 

She  and  her  brother  had  arrived,  he  understood, 
in  the  early  hours  at  Winnipeg,  after  the  agitations 
and  perils  of  the  sink-hole.  Philip  had  gone  at 
once  to  bed  and  to  slumber.  Lady  Merton  would 
soon,  it  seemed,  be  ready  for  anything  that  Winni- 
peg might  have  to  show  her. 

The  new-comer  had  time,  however,  to  realise 
and    enjoy    a    pleasant    expectancy    before    she 

44 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        45 

appeared.  He  was  apparently  occupied  with  the 
Times,  but  in  reality  he  was  very  conscious  all  the 
time  of  his  own  affairs  and  of  a  certain  crisis  to 
which,  in  his  own  belief,  he  had  now  brought 
them.  In  the  first  place,  he  could  not  get  over 
his  astonishment  at  finding  himself  where  he  was. 
The  very  aspect  of  the  Winnipeg  hotel,  as  he 
looked  curiously  round  it,  seemed  to  prove  to 
him  both  the  seriousness  of  certain  plans  and 
intentions  of  his  own,  and  the  unusual  decision 
with  which  he  had  been  pursuing  them. 

For  undoubtedly,  of  his  own  accord,  and  for 
mere  travellers'  reasons,  he  would  not  at  this 
moment  be  travelling  in  Canada.  The  old  world 
was  enough  for  him;  and  neither  in  the  States 
nor  in  Canada  had  he  so  far  seen  anything  which 
would  of  itself  have  drawn  him  away  from  his 
Cumberland  house,  his  classical  library,  his  pets, 
his  friends  and  correspondents,  his  old  servants 
and  all  the  other  items  in  a  comely  and  dignified 
way  of  life. 

He  was  just  forty  and  unmarried,  a  man  of  old 
family,  easy  disposition,  and  classical  tastes.  He 
had  been  for  a  time  Member  of  Parliament  for 
one  of  the  old  Universities,  and  he  was  now 
engaged  on  a  verse  translation  of  certain  books 
of  the  Odyssey.  That  this  particular  labour  had 
been  undertaken  before  did  not  trouble  him.     It 


46        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

was  in  fact  his  delight  to  feel  himself  a  link  in  the 
chain  of  tradition  —  at  once  the  successor  and 
progenitor  of  scholars.  Not  that  his  scholarship 
was  anything  illustrious  or  profound.  Neither 
as  poet  nor  Hellenist  would  he  ever  leave  any 
great  mark  behind  him;  but  where  other  men 
talk  of  "the  household  of  faith,"  he  might  have 
talked  rather  of  "the  household  of  letters,"  and 
would  have  seen  himself  as  a  warm  and 
familiar  sitter  by  its  hearth.  A  new  edition  of 
some  favourite  classic;  his  weekly  Athenceum', 
occasional  correspondence  with  a  French  or 
Italian  scholar  —  (he  did  not  read  German,  and 
disliked  the  race)  —  these  were  his  pleasures. 
For  the  rest  he  was  the  landlord  of  a  considerable 
estate,  as  much  of  a  sportsman  as  his  position 
required,  and  his  Conservative  politics  did  not 
include  any  sympathy  for  the  more  revolutionary 
doctrines  —  economic  or  social  —  which  seemed 
to  him  to  be  corrupting  his  party.  In  his  youth, 
before  the  death  of  an  elder  brother,  he  had  been 
trained  as  a  doctor,  and  had  spent  some  time  in  a 
London  hospital.  In  no  case  would  he  ever  have 
practised.  Before  his  training  was  over  he  had 
revolted  against  the  profession,  and  against  the 
"ugliness,"  as  it  seemed  to  him,  of  the  matters 
and  topics  with  which  a  doctor  must  perforce  be 
connected.     His    elder    brother's    death,    which. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        47 

however,  he  sincerely  regretted,  had  in  truth 
solved  many  difficulties. 

In  person  he  was  moderately  tall,  with  dark 
grizzled  hair,  agreeable  features  and  a  moustache. 
Among  his  aristocratic  relations  whom  he  met  in 
London,  the  men  thought  him  a  little  dishevelled 
and  old  -  fashioned  ;  the  women  pronounced 
him  interesting  and  "a  dear."  His  manners 
were  generally  admired,  except  by  captious 
persons  who  held  that  such  a  fact  was  of  itself 
enough  to  condemn  them;  and  he  was  welcome 
in  many  English  and  some  foreign  circles.  For 
he  travelled  every  spring,  and  was  well  acquainted 
with  the  famous  places  of  Europe.  It  need  only 
be  added  that  he  had  a  somewhat  severe  taste  in 
music,  and  could  render  both  Bach  and  Handel 
on  the  piano  with  success. 

His  property  was  only  some  six  miles  distant 
from  Martindale  Park,  the  Gaddesdens*  home. 
During  the  preceding  winter  he  had  become  a 
frequent  visitor  at  Martindale,  while  Elizabeth 
Merton  was  staying  with  her  mother  and  brother, 
and  a  little  ripple  of  talk  had  begun  to  flow 
through  the  district.  Delaine,  very  fastidious 
where  personal  dignity  was  concerned,  could  not 
make  up  his  mind  either  to  be  watched  or  laughed 
at.  He  would  have  liked  to  woo  —  always 
supposing  that  wooing  there  was   to   be  —  with 


48        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

a  maximum  of  dignity  and  privacy,  surrounded 
by  a  friendly  but  not  a  forcing  atmosphere.  But 
Elizabeth  Merton  was  a  great  favourite  in  her  own 
neighbourhood,  and  people  became  impatient. 
Was  it  to  be  a  marriage  or  was  it  not  ? 

As  soon  as  he  felt  this  enquiry  in  the  air,  Mr. 
Delaine  went  abroad  ■ —  abruptly  —  about  a  month 
before  Elizabeth  and  her  brother  started  for 
Canada.  It  was  said  that  he  had  gone  to  Italy; 
but  some  few  persons  knew  that  it  was  his  inten- 
tion to  start  from  Genoa  for  the  United  States,  in 
order  that  he  might  attend  a  celebration  at  Harvard 
University  in  honour  of  a  famous  French  Hellenist, 
who  had  covered  himself  with  glory  in  Delaine's 
eyes  by  identifying  a  number  of  real  sites  with 
places  mentioned  in  the  Odyssey.  Nobody,  how- 
ever, knew  but  himself,  that,  when  that  was  done, 
he  meant  to  join  the  brother  and  sister  on  part  of 
their  Canadian  journey,  and  that  he  hoped  thereby 
to  become  better  acquainted  with  Elizabeth 
Merton  than  was  possible  —  for  a  man  at  least 
of  his  sensitiveness  —  under  the  eyes  of  an  inquisi- 
tive neighbourhood. 

For  this  step  Lady  Merton's  consent  was  of 
course  necessary.  'He  had  accordingly  written 
from  Boston  to  ask  if  it  would  be  agreeable  to 
them  that  he  should  go  with  them  through  the 
Rockies.     The  proposal  was  most  natural.     The 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST        49 

Delaines  and  Gaddesdens  had  been  friends  for 
many  years,  and  Arthur  Delaine  enjoyed  a  special 
fame  as  a  travelling  companion  —  easy,  accom- 
plished and  well-informed. 

Nevertheless,  he  waited  at  Boston  in  some 
anxiety  for  Elizabeth's  answer.  When  it  came, 
it  was  all  cordiality.  By  all  means  let  him  go 
with  them  to  the  Rockies.  They  could  not 
unfortunately  offer  him  sleeping  room  in  the  car. 
But  by  day  Lady  Merton  hoped  he  would  be  their 
guest,  and  share  all  their  facilities  and  splendours. 
"  I  shall  be  so  glad  of  a  companion  for  Philip,  who 
is  rapidly  getting  strong  enough  to  give  me  a  great 
deal  of  trouble." 

That  was  how  she  put  it  —  how  she  must  put 
it,  of  course.     He  perfectly  understood  her. 

And  now  here  he  was,  sitting  in  the  C.  P.  R. 
Hotel  at  Winnipeg,  at  a  time  of  year  when  he  was 
generally  in  Paris  or  Rome,  investigating  the  latest 
Greek  acquisitions  of  the  Louvre,  or  the  last 
excavation  in  the  Forum;  picnicking  in  the  Cam- 
pagna;  making  expeditions  to  Assisi  or  Subiaco; 
and  in  the  evenings  frequenting  the  drawing- 
rooms  of  ministers  and  ambassadors. 

He  looked  up  presently  from  the  Times,  and  at 
the  street  outside;  the  new  and  raw  street,  with 
its  large  commercial  buildings  of  the  American 
type,  its  tramcars  and  crowded  sidewalks.     The 


50        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

muddy  roadway,  the  gaps  and  irregularities  in 
the  street  facade,  the  windows  of  a  great  store 
opposite,  displeased  his  eye.  The  whole  scene 
seemed  to  him  to  have  no  atmosphere.  As  far  as  he 
was  concerned,  it  said  nothing,  it  touched  nothing. 
What  was  it  he  was  to  be  taken  to  see  ?  Emi- 
gration offices  ?  He  resigned  himself,  with  a 
smile.  The  prospect  made  him  all  the  more 
pleasantly  conscious  that  one  feeling,  and  one 
feeling  only,  could  possibly  have  brought  him  here. 

"Ah!   there  you   are." 

A  light  figure  hurried  toward  him,  and  he  rose 
in   haste. 

But  Lady  Merton  was  intercepted  midway 
by  a  tall  man,  quite  unknown  to  Delaine. 

"I  have  arranged  everything  for  three  o'clock," 
said  the  interloper.  "You  are  sure  that  will  suit 
you  : 

"Perfectly!     And  the  guests?" 

"Half  a  dozen,  about,  are  coming."  George 
Anderson  ran  through  the  list,  and  Elizabeth 
laughed  merrily,  while  extending  her  hand  to 
Delaine. 

"How  amusing!  A  party  —  and  I  don't  know 
a  soul  in  Winnipeg.  Arrived  this  morning  — 
and  going  this  evening!  So  glad  to  see  you,  Mr. 
Arthur.     You  are  coming,  of  course.?" 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        51 

"Where?"  said  Delaine,  bewildered. 

"To  my  tea,  this  afternoon.  Mr.  Anderson  — 
Mr.  Delaine.  Mr.  Anderson  has  most  kindly 
arranged  a  perfectly  delightful  party! — in  our  car 
this  afternoon.  We  are  to  go  and  see  a  great  farm 
belonging  to  some  friend  of  his,  about  twenty 
miles  out  —  prize  cattle  and  horses  —  that  kind  of 
thing.     Isn't  it  good  of  him?" 

"Charming!"  murmured  Delaine.  "Charm- 
ing!" His  gaze  ran  over  the  figure  of  the 
Canadian. 

"  Yerkes  of  course  will  give  us  tea,"  said  Eliza- 
beth. "  His  cakes  are  a  strong  point";  she  turned 
to  Anderson.  "  And  we  may  really  have  an  engine  ? " 

"Certainly.  We  shall  run  you  out  in  forty 
minutes.     You  still  wish  to  go  on  to-night?" 

"  Philip  does.     Can  we  ?" 

"You  can  do  anything  you  wish,'*  said  Ander- 
son, smiling. 

Elizabeth  thanked  him,  and  they  chatted  a 
little  more  about  the  arrangements  and  guests 
for  the  afternoon,  while  Delaine  listened.  Who 
on  earth  was  this  new  acquaintance  of  Lady 
Merton's  ?  Some  person  she  had  met  in  the  train 
apparently,  and  connected  with  the  C.  P.  R.  A 
good-looking  fellow,  a  little  too  sure  of  himself;  but 
that  of  course  was  the  Colonial  fault. 

"One  of  the  persons  coming  this  afternoon  is 


52        LADY  MERTON",   COLONIST 

an  old  Montreal  fellow-student  of  mine,"  the 
Canadian  was  saying.  "He  is  going  to  be  a  great 
man  some  day.  But  if  you  get  him  to  talk,  you 
won't  like  his  opinions  —  I  thought  I'd  better 
warn  you.'* 

"How  very  interesting!"  put  in  Delaine,  with 
perhaps  excessive  politeness.  "What  sort  of 
opinions.?     Do  you   grow  any  Socialists   here?" 

Anderson  examined  the  speaker,  as  it  were  for 
the  first  time. 

"The  man  I  was  speaking  of  is  a  French- 
Canadian,"  he  said,  rather  shortly,  "and  a 
Catholic." 

"The  very  man  I  want  to  see,"  cried  Elizabeth. 
""I  suppose  he  hates  us?" 

"Who?  —  England?  Not  at  all.  He  loves 
England  —  or    says    he    does  —  and    hates    the 

mpire. 

"'Love  me,  love  my  Empire!*"  said  Elizabeth. 
*'  But,  I  see  —  I  am  not  to  talk  to  him  about  the 
Boer  War,  or  contributing  to  the  Navy?'* 

"Better  not,"  laughed  Anderson.  "I  am  sure 
he  will  want  to  behave  himself;  but  he  sometimes 
loses  his  head." 

Elizabeth  sincerely  hoped  he  might  lose  it  at  her 
party. 

"We  want  as  much  Canada  as  possible,  don't 
we?"     She  appealed  to  Delaine. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        53 

"To  see,  in  fact,  the  'young  barbarians  — 
all  at  play!'"  said  Anderson.  The  note  of  sar- 
casm had  returned  to  his  clear  voice.  He  stood, 
one  hand  on  his  hip,  looking  down  on  Lady 
Merton. 

"Oh!"  exclaimed  Elizabeth,  protesting;  while 
Delaine  was  conscious  of  surprise  that  anyone 
in  the  New  World  should  quote  anything. 

Anderson  hastily  resumed:  "No,  no.  I  know 
you  are  most  kind,  in  wishing  to  see  everything 
you  can." 

"Why  else  should  one  come  to  the  Colonies.?'* 
put  in  Delaine.  Again  his  smile,  as  he  spoke,  was 
a  little  overdone. 

"Oh,  we  mustn't  talk  of  Colonies,"  cried  Eliza- 
beth, looking  at  Anderson;  "Canada,  Mr.  Arthur, 
doesn't  like  to  be  called  a  colony." 

"What  is  she,  then?"  asked  Delaine,  with  an 
amused  shrug  of  the  shoulders. 

"She  is  a  nation!"  said  the  Canadian,  abruptly. 
Then,  turning  to  Lady  Merton,  he  rapidly  went 
through  some  other  business  arrangements  with 
her. 

"  Three  o'clock  then  for  the  car.  For  this  morn- 
ing you  are  provided?"     He  glanced  at  Delaine. 

Lady  Merton  replied  that  Mr.  Delaine  would 
take  her  round;  and  Anderson  bowed  and 
departed. 


54        LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

"  Who  Is  he,  and  how  did  you  come  across  him  ? " 
asked  Delaine,  as  they  stepped  into  the  street. 

Elizabeth  explained,  dwelling  with  enthusiasm 
on  the  kindness  and  ability  with  which  the  young 
man,  since  their  acquaintance  began,  had  made 
himself  their  courier.  "Philip,  you  know,  is  no 
use  at  all.  But  Mr.  Anderson  seems  to  know 
everybody  —  gets  everything  done.  Instead  of 
sending  my  letters  round  this  morning  he 
telephoned  to  everybody  for  me.  And  every- 
body is  coming.  Isn't  it  too  kind  .?  You  know  it 
is  for  Papa's  sake" — she  explained  eagerly  — 
*' because  Canada  thinks  she  owes  him  some- 
thing." 

Delaine  suggested  that  perhaps  life  in  Winni- 
peg was  monotonous,  and  its  inhabitants  might 
be  glad  of  distractions.  He  also  begged  —  with 
a  slight  touch  of  acerbity  —  that  now  that  he  had 
joined  them  he  too  might  be  made  use  of. 

"Ah!  but  you  don't  know  the  country,"  said 
Lady  Merton  gently.  "Don't  you  feel  that  we 
must  get  the  natives  to  guide  us  —  to  put  us  in  the 
way  ?  It  is  only  they  who  can  really  feel  the 
poetry  of  it  all.'* 

Her  face  kindled.  Arthur  Delaine,  who  thought 
that  her  remark  was  one  of  the  foolish  exaggera- 
tions of  nice  women,  was  none  the  less  conscious 
as  she  made  it,  that  her  appearance  was  charming 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST        55 

—  all  indeed  that  a  man  could  desire  in  a  wife. 
Her  simple  dress  of  white  linen,  her  black  hat, 
her  lovely  eyes,  and  little  pointed  chin,  the  bunch 
of  white  trilliums  at  her  belt,  which  a  child  in  the 
emigrant  car  had  gathered  and  given  her  the  day 
before  —  all  her  personal  possessions  and  acces- 
sories seemed  to  him  perfection.  Yes!  —  but 
he  meant  to  go  slowly,  for  both  their  sakes.  It 
seemed  fitting  and  right,  however,  at  this  point 
that  he  should  express  his  great  pleasure  and 
gratitude  in  being  allowed  to  join  them.  Eliza- 
beth replied  simply,  without  any  embarrassment 
that  could  be  seen.  Yet  secretly  both  were  con- 
scious that  something  was  on  its  trial,  and  that 
more  was  in  front  of  them  than  a  mere  journey 
through  the  Rockies.  He  was  an  old  friend 
both  of  herself  and  her  family.  She  believed  him 
to  be  honourable,  upright,  affectionate.  He  was 
of  the  same  world  and  tradition  as  herself,  well 
endowed,  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman.  He  would 
make  a  good  brother  for  Philip.  And  heretofore 
she  had  seen  him  on  ground  which  had  shown 
him  to  advantage;  either  at  home  or  abroad, 
during  a  winter  at  Rome  —  a  spring  at  Florence. 
Indeed,  as  they  strolled  about  Winnipeg,  he 
talked  to  her  incessantly  about  persons  and 
incidents  connected  with  the  spring  of  the  year 
before,  when  they  had  both  been  in  Rome. 


56        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

"You  remember  that  delicious  day  at  Castel 
Gandolfo  ?  —  on  the  terrace  of  the  Villa  Barberini  ? 
And  the  expedition  to  Horace's  farm  ?  You 
recollect  the  little  girl  there  —  the  daughter  of 
the  Dutch  Minister  ?  She's  married  an  American 
—  a  very  good  fellow.  They've  bought  an  old 
villa  on  Monte  Mario," 

And  so  on,  and  so  on.  The  dear  Italian  names 
rolled  out,  and  the  speaker  grew  more  and  more 
animated  and  agreeable. 

Only,  unfortunately,  Elizabeth's  attention  failed 
him.  A  motor  car  had  been  lent  them  in  the 
hospitable  Canadian  way;  and  as  they  sped 
through  and  about  the  city,  up  the  business  streets, 
round  the  park,  and  the  residential  suburb  rising 
along  the  Assiniboine,  as  they  plunged  through 
seas  of  black  mud  to  look  at  the  little  old-fashioned 
Cathedral  of  St.  John,  with  its  graveyard  recalling 
the  earliest  days  of  the  settlement.  Lady  Merton 
gradually  ceased  even  to  pretend  to  listen  to  her 
companion. 

"They  have  found  some  extremely  jolly  things 
lately  at  Porto  D'Anzio  —  a  fine  torso  —  quite 
Greek." 

Have  they?"  said  Elizabeth,  absently  — 
Have  they  ?  — And  to  think  that  in  1870,  just  a 
year  or  two  before  my  father  and  mother  married, 
there   was   nothing   here   but   an   outpost   in   the 


it 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        57 

wilderness!  —  a  few  scores  of  people!  One  just 
hears  this  country  grow."  She  turned  pensively 
away  from  the  tombstone  of  an  old  Scottish 
settler  in  the  shady  graveyard  of  St.  John. 

"Ah!  but  what  will  it  grow  to?"  said  Delaine, 
drily.  "  Is  Winnipeg  going  to  be  interesting  ^ 
—  is  it  going  to  matter?" 

"Come  and  look  at  the  Emigration  Offices/* 
laughed  Elizabeth  for  answer. 

And  he  found  himself  dragged  through  room 
after  room  of  the  great  building,  and  standing  by 
while  Elizabeth,  guided  by  an  official  who  seemed. 
to  hide  a  more  than  Franciscan  brotherliness 
under  the  aspects  of  a  canny  Scot,  and  helped  by 
an  interpreter,  made  her  way  into  the  groups  of 
home-seekers  crowding  round  the  clerks  and 
counters  of  the  lower  room  —  English,  Americans, 
Swedes,  Dutchmen,  Galicians,  French  Canadians. 
Some  men,  indeed,  who  were  actually  hanging 
over  maps,  listening  to  the  directions  and  infor- 
mation of  the  officials,  were  far  too  busy  to  talk 
to  tourists,  but  there  were  others  who  had  finished 
their  business,  or  were  still  waiting  their  turn,  and 
among  them,  as  also  among  the  women,  the  little 
English  lady  found  many  willing  to  talk  to  her. 

And  what  courage,  what  vivacity  she  threw 
into  the  business!  Delaine,  who  had  seen  her 
till  now  as  a  person  whose  natural  reserve  was 


58        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

rather  displayed  than  concealed  by  her  light 
agreeable  manner,  who  had  often  indeed  had 
cause  to  wonder  where  and  what  might  be  the 
real  woman,  followed  her  from  group  to  group  in 
a  silent  astonishment.  Between  these  people 
—  belonging  to  the  primitive  earth-life  —  and 
herself,  there  seemed  to  be  some  sudden  intuitive 
sympathy  which  bewildered  him;  whether  she 
talked  to  some  Yankee  farmer  from  the  Dakotas, 
long-limbed,  lantern-jawed,  all  the  moisture  dried 
out  of  him  by  hot  summers,  hard  winters,  and 
long  toil,  who  had  come  over  the  border  with  a 
pocket  full  of  money,  the  proceeds  of  prairie- 
farming  in  a  republic,  to  sink  it  all  joyfully  in  a 
new  venture  under  another  flag;  or  to  some 
broad-shouldered  English  youth  from  her  own 
north  country;  or  to  some  hunted  Russian  from 
the  Steppes,  in  whose  eyes  had  begun  to  dawn  the 
first  lights  of  liberty;  or  to  the  dark-faced  Italians 
and  Frenchmen,  to  whom  she  chattered  in  their 
own   tongues. 

An  Indian  reserve  of  good  land  had  just  been 
thrown  open  to  settlers.  The  room  was  thronged. 
But  Elizabeth  was  afraid  of  no  one;  and  no  one 
repulsed  her.  The  high  official  who  took  them 
through,  lingered  over  the  process,  busy  as  the 
morning  was,  all  for  the  beaux  yeux  of  Elizabeth; 
and  they  left  him  pondering  by  what  legerdemain 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        59 

he  could  possibly  so  manipulate  his  engagements 
that  afternoon  as  to  join  Lady  Merton's  tea-party. 

"Well,  that  was  quite  interesting!"  said  Delaine 
as  they  emerged. 

Elizabeth,  however,  would  certainly  have 
detected  the  perfunctoriness  of  the  tone,  and  the 
hypocrisy  of  the  speech,  had  she  had  any  thoughts 
to  spare. 

But  her  face  showed  her  absorbed. 

"Isn't  it  amazing!"  Her  tone  was  quiet,  her 
eyes  on  the  ground. 

"Yet,  after  all,  the  world  has  seen  a  good  many 
emigrations  in  its  day!"  remarked  Delaine,  not 
without  irritation. 

She  lifted  her  eyes. 

"Ah  —  but  nothing  like  this!  One  hears  of 
how  the  young  nations  came  down  and  peopled 
the  Roman  Empire.  But  that  lasted  so  long. 
One  person  —  with  one  life  —  could  only  see  a 
bit  of  it.  And  here  one  sees  it  all  —  all,  at  once! 
—  as  a  great  march  —  the  march  of  a  new  people 
to  its  home.  Fifty  years  ago,  wolves  and  bears, 
and  buffaloes  —  twelve  years  ago  even,  the  great 
movement  had  not  begun  —  and  now,  every  week, 
a  new  town! — the  new  nation  spreading,  spread- 
ing over  the  open  land,  irresistibly,  silently;  no 
one  setting  bounds  to  it,  no  one  knowing  what 
will  come  of  it!" 


6o        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

She  checked  herself.  Her  voice  had  been  sub- 
dued, but  there  was  a  tremor  in  it.  Delaine 
caught  her  up,  rather  helplessly. 

"Ah!  isn't  that  the  point?  What  will  come 
of  it  ?  Numbers  and  size  aren't  everything. 
Where  is  it  all  tending?" 

She  looked  up  at  him,  still  exalted,  still  flushed, 
and  said  softly,  as  though  she  could  not  help  it, 
"'On  to  the  bound  of  the  waste — on  to  the 
City  of  God!' " 

He  gazed  at  her  in  discomfort.  Here  was  an 
Elizabeth  Merton  he  had  yet  to  know.  No  trace 
of  her  in  the  ordinary  life  of  an  English  country 
house! 

"You  are  Canadian!"  he  said  with  a  smile. 

"No,  no!"  said  Elizabeth  eagerly,  recovering 
herself,  "I  am  only  a  spectator.  We  see  the 
drama  —  we  feel  it  —  much  more  than  they  can 
who  are  in  it.  At  least"  —  she  wavered  — 
"Well!  —  I  have  met  one  man  who  seems  to 
feel  it!" 

"Your  Canadian  friend?" 

Elizabeth  nodded. 

"He  sees  the  vision — he  dreams  the  dream!" 
she  said  brightly.  "So  few  do.  But  I  think  he 
does.  Oh,  dear  —  dear] —  how  time  flies!  I  must 
go  and  see  what  Philip  is  after." 

Delaine  was  left  discontented.     He  had  come 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        6i 

to  press  his  suit,  and  he  found  a  lady  preoccupied. 
Canada,  it  seemed,  was  to  be  his  rival!  Would 
he  ever  be  allow^ed  to  get  in  a  word  edgewise  ? 

Was  there  ever  anything  so  absurd,  so  dis- 
concerting ?  He  looked  forward  gloomily  to  a 
dull  afternoon,  in  quest  of  fat  cattle,  with  a  car- 
full  of  unknown  Canadians. 


CHAPTER  IV 

At  three  o'clock,  in  the  wide  Winnipeg  station, 
there  gathered  on  the  platform  beside  Lady  Mer- 
ton's  car  a  merry  and  motley  group  of  people. 
A  Chief  Justice  from  Alberta,  one  of  the  Senators 
for  Manitoba,  a  rich  lumberman  from  British 
Columbia,  a  Toronto  manufacturer  —  owner  of 
the  model  farm  which  the  party  was  to  inspect, 
two  or  three  ladies,  among  them  a  little  English 
girl  with  fine  eyes,  whom  Philip  Gaddesden  at 
once  marked  for  approval;  and  a  tall,  dark- 
complexioned  man  with  hollow  cheeks,  large 
ears,  and  a  long  chin,  who  was  introduced,  with 
particular  emphasis,  to  Elizabeth  by  Anderson, 
as  "  Mr.  Felix  Mariette" —  Member  of  Parliament, 
apparently,  for  some  constituency  in  the  Province 
of  Quebec. 

The  small  crowd  of  persons  collected,  all 
eminent  in  the  Canadian  world,  and  some  beyond 
it,  examined  their  hostess  of  the  afternoon  with  a 
kindly  amusement.  Elizabeth  had  sent  round 
letters;  Anderson,  who  was  well  known,  it 
appeared,  in  Winnipeg,  had  done  a  good  deal  of 

62 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        63 

telephoning.  And  by  the  letters  and  the  tele- 
phoning this  group  of  busy  people  had  allowed 
itself  to  be  gathered;  simply  because  Elizabeth 
was  her  father's  daughter,  and  it  was  worth  while 
to  put  such  people  in  the  right  way,  and  to  send 
them  home  with  some  rational  notions  of  the 
country  they  had  come  to  see. 

And  she,  who  at  home  never  went  out  of  her 
way  to  make  a  new  acquaintance,  was  here  the 
centre  of  the  situation,  grasping  the  identities  of 
all  these  strangers  with  wonderful  quickness, 
flitting  about  from  one  to  another,  making  friends 
with  them  all,  and  constraining  Philip  to  do  the 
same.  Anderson  followed  her  closely,  evidently 
feeling  a  responsibility  for  the  party  only  second 
to  her  own. 

He  found  time,  however,  to  whisper  to  Marietta, 
as  they  were  all  about  to  mount  the  car: 

"Eh  bien?" 

"Mais  oui  —  tres  gracieuse!"  said  the  other, 
but  without  a  smile,  and  with  a  shrug  of  the 
shoulders.  He  was  only  there  to  please  Ander- 
son. What  did  the  aristocratic  Englishwoman 
on  tour  —  with  all  her  little  Jingoisms  and 
Imperialisms  about  her  —  matter  to  him,  or  he 
to  her .? 

While  the  stream  of  guests  was  slowly  making 
its  way  into  the  car,  while  Yerkes  at  the  further 


64        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

end,  resplendent  in  a  buttonhole  and  a  white  cap 
and  apron,  was  watching  the  scene,  and  the 
special  engine,  like  an  impatient  horse,  was 
puffing  and  hissing  to  be  ofF,  a  man,  who  had 
entered  the  cloak-room  of  the  station  to  deposit 
a  bundle  just  as  the  car-party  arrived,  approached 
the  cloak-room  door  from  the  inside,  and  looked 
through  the  glazed  upper  half.  His  stealthy 
movements  and  his  strange  appearance  passed 
unnoticed.  There  was  a  noisy  emigrant  party  in 
the  cloak-room,  taking  out  luggage  deposited  the 
night  before;  they  were  absorbed  in  their  own 
affairs,  and  in  some  wrangle  with  the  officials 
which  involved  a  good  deal  of  lost  temper  on  both 
sides. 

The  man  was  old  and  grey.  His  face,,  large- 
featured  and  originally  comely  in  outline,  wore 
the  unmistakable  look  of  the  outcast.  His  eyes 
were  bloodshot,  his  mouth  trembled,  so  did  his 
limbs  as  he  stood  peering  by  the  door.  His  clothes 
were  squalid,  and  both  they  and  his  person 
diffused  the  odours  of  the  drinking  bar  from  which 
he  had  just  come.  The  porter  in  charge  of  the 
cloak-room  had  run  a  hostile  eye  over  him  as  he 
deposited  his  bundle.  But  now  no  one  observed 
him;  while  he,  gathered  up  and  concentrated,  like 
some  old  wolf  upon  a  trail,  followed  every  move- 
ment of  the  party  entering  the  Gaddesden  car. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        65 

George  Anderson  and  his  French  Canadian 
friend  left  the  platform  last.  As  Anderson 
reached  the  door  of  the  car  he  turned  back  to 
speak  to  Mariette,  and  his  face  and  figure  were 
clearly  visible  to  the  watcher  behind  the  barred 
cloak-room  door.  A  gleam  of  savage  excitement 
passed  over  the  old  man's  face;  his  limbs  trembled 
more  violently. 

Through  the  side  windows  of  the  car  the  party 
could  be  seen  distributing  themselves  over  the 
comfortable  seats,  laughing  and  talking  in  groups. 
In  the  dining-room,  the  white  tablecloth  spread 
for  tea,  w4th  the  china  and  silver  upon  it,  made  a 
pleasant  show.  And  now  two  high  officials  of 
the  railway  came  hurrying  up,  one  to  shake  hands 
with  Lady  Merton  and  see  that  all  was  right,  the 
other  to  accompany  the  party. 

Elizabeth  Merton  came  out  in  her  white  dress, 
and  leant  over  the  railing,  talking,  with  smiles, 
to  the  official  left  behind.  He  raised  his  hat,  the 
car  moved  slowly  off",  and  in  the  group  imme- 
diately behind  Lady  Merton  the  handsome  face 
and  thick  fair  hair  of  George  Anderson  showed 
conspicuous  as  long  as  the  special  train  remained 


in  sight. 


The  old  man  raised  himself  and  noiselessly 
went  out  upon  the  platform.  Outside  the  station 
he  fell  in  with  a  younger  man,  who  had  been  appar- 


66        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

ently  waiting  for  him;  a  strong,  picturesque  fellow, 
with  the  skin  and  countenance  of  a  half-breed. 

"Well?"  said  the  younger,  impatiently. 
"Thought  you  was  goin'  to  take  a  bunk  there.'* 

"Couldn't  get  out  before.     It's  all  right." 

"Don't  care  if  it  is,'*  said  the  other  sulkily. 
"Don't  care  a  damn  button  not  for  you  nor  any- 
thin*  you're  after!  But  you  give  me  my  two 
dollars  sharp,  and  don't  keep  me  another  half- 
hour  waitin'.  That's  what  I  reckoned  for,  an* 
I*m  goin*  to  have  it.'*  He  held  out  his 
hand. 

The  old  man  fumbled  slowly  in  an  inner  pocket 
of  his  filthy  overcoat. 

"You  say  the  car's  going  on  to-night.^'* 

"It  is,  old  bloke,  and  Mr.  George  Anderson 
sam.e  train  —  number  ninety-seven  —  as  ever  is. 
Car  shunted  at  Calgary  to-morrow  night.  So 
none  of  your  nonsense  —  fork  out!  I  had  a  lot 
o*  trouble  gettin*  you  the  tip." 

The  old  man  put  some  silver  into  his  palm  with 
shaking  fingers.  The  youth,  who  was  a  bar- 
tender from  a  small  saloon  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  station,  looked  at  him  with  contempt. 

"Wonder  when  you  was  sober  last  .^  Think 
you'd  better  clean  yourself  a  bit,  or  they'll  not  let 
you  on  the  train." 

"Who  told  you  I  wanted  to  go  on  the  train  }" 


LADY   MERTON,    COLONIST        67 

said  the  old  man  sharply.  "I'm  staying  at 
Winnipeg." 

"Oh!  you  are,  are  you  ?"  said  the  other  mock- 
ingly. "We  shouldn't  cry  our  eyes  out  if  you 
was  sayin'  good-bye.  Ta-ta!"  And  with  the 
dollars  in  his  hand,  head  downwards,  he  went  off 
like  the  wind. 

The  old  man  waited  till  the  lad  was  out  of 
sight,  then  went  back  into  the  station  and  bought 
an  emigrant  ticket  to  Calgary  for  the  night  train. 
He  emerged  again,  and  walked  up  the  main  street 
of  Winnipeg,  which  on  this  bright  afternoon  was 
crowded  with  people  and  traffic.  He  passed  the 
door  of  a  solicitor's  office,  where  a  small  sum  of 
money,  the  proceeds  of  a  legacy,  had  been  paid 
him  the  day  before,  and  he  finally  made  his  way 
into  the  free  library  of  Winnipeg,  and  took  down 
a  file  of  the  Winnipeg  Chronicle. 

He  turned  some  pages  laboriously,  yet  not 
vaguely.  His  eyes  were  dim  and  his  hands  palsied, 
but  he  knew  what  he  was  looking  for.  He  found 
it  at  last,  and  sat  pondering  it  —  the  paragraph 
which,  when  he  had  hit  upon  it  by  chance  in  the 
same  place  twenty-four  hours  earlier,  had  changed 
the  whole  current  of  his  thoughts. 

"Donaldminster,  Sask.,  May  6th. — We  are 
delighted  to  hear  from  this  prosperous  and  go- 
ahead  town  that,  with  regard  to  the  vacant  seat 


68        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

the  Liberals  of  the  city  have  secured  as  a  candidate 
Mr.  George  Anderson,  who  achieved  such  an 
important  success  last  year  for  the  C.  P.  R.  by 
his  settlement  on  their  behalf  of  the  dangerous 
strike  w^hich  had  arisen  in  the  Rocky  Mountains 
section  of  the  line,  and  which  threatened  not  only 
to  affect  all  the  construction  camps  in  the  district 
but  to  spread  to  the  railway  workers  proper  and 
to  the  whole  Winnipeg  section.  Mr.  Anderson 
seems  to  have  a  remarkable  hold  on  the  railway 
men,  and  he  is  besides  a  speaker  of  great  force. 
He  is  said  to  have  addressed  twenty-three  meet- 
ings, and  to  have  scarcely  eaten  or  slept  for  a 
fortnight.  He  was  shrewd  and  fair  in  negotiation, 
as  well  as  eloquent  in  speech.  The  result  was 
an  amicable  settlement,  satisfactory  to  all  parties. 
And  the  farmers  of  the  West  owe  Mr.  Anderson 
a  good  deal.  So  does  the  C.  P.  R.  For  if  the 
strike  had  broken  out  last  October,  just  as  the 
movement  of  the  fall  crops  eastward  was  at  its 
height,  the  farmers  and  the  railway,  and  Canada 
in  general  would  have  been  at  its  mercy.  We 
wish  Mr.  Anderson  a  prosperous  election  (it  is 
said,  indeed,  that  he  is  not  to  be  opposed)  and 
every  success  in  his  political  career.  He  is,  we 
believe,  Canadian  born  —  sprung  from  a  farm 
in  Manitoba  —  so  that  he  has  grown  up  with  the 
Northwest,  and  shares  all  its  hopes  and  ambitions." 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        69 

The  old  man,  with  both  elbows  on  the  table, 
crouched  over  the  newspaper,  incoherent  pictures 
of  the  past  coursing  through  his  mind,  which  was 
still  dazed  and  stupid  from  the  drink  of  the  night 
before. 

Meanwhile,  the  special  train  sped  along  the 
noble  Red  River  and  out  into  the  country.  All 
over  the  prairie  the  wheat  was  up  in  a  smooth  green 
carpet,  broken  here  and  there  by  the  fields  of 
timothy  and  clover,  or  the  patches  of  summer 
fallow,  or  the  white  homestead  buildings.  The 
June  sun  shone  down  upon  the  teeming  earth, 
and  a  mirage,  born  of  sun  and  moisture,  spread 
along  the  edge  of  the  horizon,  so  that  Elizabeth, 
the  lake-lover,  could  only  imagine  in  her  bewilder- 
ment that  Lake  Winnipeg  or  Lake  Manitoba  had 
come  dancing  south  and  east  to  meet  her,  so 
clearly  did  the  houses  and  trees,  far  away  behind 
them,  and  on  either  side,  seem  to  be  standing  at 
the  edge  of  blue  water,  in  which  the  white  clouds 
overhead  were  mirrored,  and  reed-beds  stretched 
along  the  shore.  But  as  the  train  receded,  the 
mirage  followed  them;  the  dream-water  lapped  up 
the  trees  and  the  fields,  and  even  the  line  they  had 
just  passed  over  seemed  to  be  standing  in  water. 

How  foreign  to  an  English  eye  was  the  flat, 
hedgeless  landscape!  with  its  vast  satin-smooth 
fields  of  bluish-green  wheat;  its  farmhouses  with 


70        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

their  ploughed  fireguards  and  shelter-belts  of 
young  trees;  its  rare  villages,  each  stretching 
in  one  long  straggling  line  of  wooden  houses  along 
the  level  earth;  its  scattered,  treeless  lakes,  from 
which  the  duck  rose  as  the  train  passed!  Was  it 
this  mere  foreignness,  this  likeness  in  difference, 
that  made  it  strike  so  sharply,  with  such  a  pleasant 
pungency  on  Elizabeth's  senses  ?  Or  was  it 
something  else  —  some  perception  of  an  opening 
future,  not  only  for  Canada  but  for  herself,  ming- 
ling with  the  broad  light,  the  keen  air,  the  lovely 
strangeness   of  the   scene  ? 

Yet  she  scarcely  spoke  to  Arthur  Delaine,  with 
whom  one  might  have  supposed  this  hidden  feel- 
ing connected.  She  was  indeed  aware  of  him  all  the 
time.  She  watched  him  secretly;  watching  herself, 
too,  in  the  characteristic  modern  way.  But  out- 
wardly she  was  absorbed  in  talking  with  the  guests. 

The  Chief  Justice,  roundly  modelled,  with  a 
pink  ball  of  a  face  set  in  white  hair,  had  been  half 
a  century  in  Canada,  and  had  watched  the  North- 
west grow  from  babyhood.  He  had  passed  his 
seventieth  year,  but  Elizabeth  noticed  in  the  old 
men  of  Canada  a  strained  expectancy,  a  buoyant 
hope,  scarcely  inferior  to  that  of  the  younger 
generation.  There  was  in  Sir  Michael's  talk  no 
hint  of  a  Nunc  Dimittis;  rather  a  passionate 
regret  that  life  was  ebbing,  and  the  veil  falling 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        71 

over  a  national  spectacle  so  enthralling,  so 
dramatic. 

"  Before  this  century  is  out  we  shall  be  a  people 
of  eighty  millions,  and  within  measurable  time 
this  plain  of  a  thousand  miles  from  here  to  the 
Rockies  will  be  as  thickly  peopled  as  the  plain 
of  Lombardy.'* 

"Well,  and  what  then?'*  said  a  harsh  voice 
in  a  French  accent,  interrupting  the  Chief  Justice. 

Arthur  Delaine's  face,  turning  towards  the 
speaker,  suddenly  lightened,  as  though  its  owner 
said,  "Ah!  precisely." 

"The  plain  of  Lombardy  is  not  a  Paradise," 
continued  Mariette,  with  a  laugh  that  had  in  it  a 
touch  of  impatience. 

"Not  far  off  it,"  murmured  Delaine,  as  he 
looked  out  on  the  vast  field  of  wheat  they  were 
passing  —  a  field  two  miles  long,  flat  and  green 
and  bare  as  a  billiard-table  —  and  remembered 
the  chestnuts  and  the  looping  vines,  the  patches 
of  silky  corn  and  spiky  maize,  and  all  the  inter- 
lacing richness  and  broidering  of  the  Italian  plain. 
His  soul  rebelled  against  this  naked  new  earth, 
and  its  bare  new  fortunes.  All  very  well  for  those 
who  must  live  in  it  and  make  it.  "Yet  is  there 
better  than  it!" — lands  steeped  in  a  magic  that 
has  been  woven  for  them  by  the  mere  life  of 
immemorial  generations. 


72        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

He  murmured  this  to  Elizabeth,  who  smiled. 

"Their  shroud  ?"  she  said,  to  tease  him.  "But 
Canada  has  on  her  wedding  garment!" 

Again  he  asked  himself  what  had  come  to  her. 
She  looked  years  younger  than  when  he  had 
parted  from  her  in  England.  The  delicious 
thought  shot  through  him  that  his  advent  might 
have  something  to  do  with  it. 

He  stooped  towards  her. 

"Willy-nilly,  your  friends  must  like  Canada!" 
he  said,  in  her  ear;  "if  it  makes  you  so  happy." 

He  had  no  art  of  compliment,  but  the  words 
were  simple  and  sincere,  and  Elizabeth  grew 
suddenly  rosy,  to  her  own  great  annoyance. 
Before  she  could  reply,  however,  the  Chief  Justice 
had  insisted  on  bringing  her  back  into  the  general 
conversation. 

"Come  and  keep  the  peace,  Lady  Merton! 
Here  is  my  friend  Mariette  playing  the  devil's 
advocate  as  usual.  Anderson  tells  me  you  are 
inclined  to  think  well  of  us;  so  perhaps  you  ought 
to  hear  it." 

Mariette  smiled  and  bowed  a  trifle  sombrely. 
He  was  plain  and  gaunt,  but  he  had  the  air  of  a 
grand  seigneuTy  and  was  in  fact  a  member  of  one 
of  the  old  seigneurial  families  of  Quebec. 

"I  have  been  enquiring  of  Sir  Michael,  madam, 
whether  he  is    quite   happy   in    his    mind    as   to 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST        73 

these  Yankees  that  are  now  pouring  into  the  new 
provinces.  He,  Hke  everyone  else,  prophesies 
great  things  for  Canada;  but  suppose  it  is  an 
American  Canada?" 

"Let  them  come,"  said  Anderson,  with  a  touch 
of  scorn.  "Excellent  stuff!  We  can  absorb 
them.     We  are  doing  it  fast." 

"Can  you  ?  They  are  pouring  all  over  the  new 
districts  as  fast  as  the  survey  is  completed  and  the 
railways  planned.  They  bring  capital,  which 
your  Englishman  doesn't.  They  bring  knowledge 
of  the  prairie  and  the  climate,  which  your  English- 
men haven't  got.  As  for  capital,  America  is 
doing  everything;  financing  the  railways,  the 
mines,  buying  up  the  lands,  and  leasing  the  forests. 
British  Columbia  is  only  nominally  yours;  Ameri- 
can capital  and  business  have  got  their  grip  firm 
on  the  very  vitals  of  the  province." 

"Perfectly  true!"  —  put  in  the  lumberman 
from  Vancouver  —  "They  have  three-fourths  of 
the   forests   in   their  hands." 

"No  matter!"  said  Anderson,  kindling. 
"There  was  a  moment  of  danger  —  twenty  years 
ago.  It  is  gone.  Canada  will  no  more  be 
American  than  she  will  be  Catholic  —  with 
apologies  to  Mariette.  These  Yankees  come 
in  —  they  turn  Englishmen  in  six  months  —  they 
celebrate  Dominion  Day  on  the  first  of  July,  and 


74        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

Independence  Day,  for  old  sake's  sake,  on  the 
fourth;  and  their  children  will  be  as  loyal  as 
Toronto." 

"Aye,  and  as  dull!"  said  Mariette  fiercely. 

The  conversation  dissolved  in  protesting 
laughter.  The  Chief  Justice,  Anderson,  and  the 
lumberman  fell  upon  another  subject.  Philip 
and  the  pretty  English  girl  were  flirting  on  the 
platform  outside,  Mariette  dropped  into  a  seat 
beside  Elizabeth. 

"You  know  my  friend,  Mr.  Anderson, 
madam  ?" 

"  I  made  acquaintance  with  him  on  the  journey 
yesterday.     He  has  been  most  kind  to  us." 

"He  is  a  very  remarkable  man.  When  he  gets 
into  the  House,  he  will  be  heard  of.  He  will 
perhaps  make  his  mark  on  Canada." 

"You  and  he  are  old  friends  ?" 

"Since  our  student  days.  I  v/as  of  course  at 
the  French  College  —  and  he  at  McGill.  But 
we  sav/  a  great  deal  of  each  other.  He  used  to 
come  home  with  me  in  his  holidays." 

"He  told  me  something  of  his  early  life." 

"Did  he  ?  It  is  a  sad  history,  and  I  fear  we  — 
my  family,  that  is,  who  are  so  attached  to  him 
—  have  only  made  it  sadder.  Three  years  ago  he 
was  engaged  to  my  sister.  Then  the  Archbishop 
forbade  mixed  marriages.     My  sister  broke  it  oflF, 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        75 

and  now  she  is  a  nun  in  the  UrsuUne  Convent  at 
Quebec." 

"Oh,  poor  things!"  cried  EHzabeth,  her  eye  on 
Anderson's  distant  face. 

"My  sister  is  quite  happy,"  said  Mariette 
sharply.  "She  did  her  duty.  But  my  poor 
friend  suffered.  However,  now  he  has  got  over  it. 
And  I  hope  he  will  marry.  He  is  very  dear  to  me, 
though  we  have  not  a  single  opinion  in  the  world 


in  common." 


Elizabeth  kept  him  talking.  The  picture  of 
Anderson  drawn  for  her  by  the  admiring  but 
always  critical  affection  of  his  friend,  touched  and 
stirred  her.  His  influence  at  college,  the  efforts 
by  which  he  had  placed  his  brothers  in  the  world, 
the  sensitive  and  generous  temperament  w^hich 
had  won  him  friends  among  the  French  Canadian 
students,  he  remaining  all  the  time  English  of  the 
English;  the  tendency  to  melancholy  —  a  personal 
and  private  melancholy  —  which  mingled  in  him 
with  a  passionate  enthusiasm  for  Canada,  and 
Canada's  future;  Mariette  drew  these  things  for 
her,  in  a  stately  yet  pungent  French  that  affected 
her  strangely,  as  though  the  French  of  Saint  Simon 
—  or  something  like  it  —  breathed  again  from 
a  Canadian  mouth.  Anderson  meanwhile  was 
standing  outside  with  the  Chief  Justice.  She 
threw  a  glance  at  him  now  and  then,  wondering 


76        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

about  his  love  affair.  Had  he  really  got  over  it  ? 
—  or  was  that  M.  Mariette's  delusion  ?  She 
liked,  on  the  contrary,  to  think  of  him  as  constant 
and  broken-hearted! 

The  car  stopped,  as  it  seemed,  on  the  green 
prairie,  thirty  miles  from  Winnipeg.  Elizabeth 
was  given  up  to  the  owner  of  the  great  farm  — 
one  of  the  rich  men  of  Canada  for  whom  experi- 
ment in  the  public  interest  becomes  a  passion; 
and  Anderson  walked  on  her  other  hand. 

Delaine  endured  a  wearisome  half-hour.  He 
got  no  speech  with  Elizabeth,  and  prize  cattle 
were  his  abomination.  When  the  half-hour  was 
done,  he  slipped  away,  unnoticed,  from  the  party. 
He  had  marked  a  small  lake  or  "slough"  at  the 
rear  of  the  house,  with  wide  reed-beds  and  a  clump 
of  Cottonwood.  He  betook  himself  to  the  cotton- 
wood,  took  out  his  pocket  Homer  and  a  notebook, 
and  fell  to  his  task.     He  was  in  the  thirteenth  book : 

eb?  B*  or   avrip  Sopiroio  XiXaieraL,  m  re  Train] fiap 
vetbv  av   eXicrjrov  ySo'e  oXvoire  irrjKTov  dporpov  .   .   . 

"As  when  a  man  longeth  for  supper,  for  whom, 
the  livelong  day,  two  wine-coloured  oxen  have 
dragged  the  fitted  plough  through  the  fallow,  and 
joyful  to  such  an  one  is  the  going  down  of  the  sun 
that  sends  him  to  his  meal,  for  his  knees  tremble 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        -j-j 

as  he  goes  —  so  welcome  to  Odysseus  was  the 
setting    of   the    sun":     .... 

He  lost  himself  in  familiar  joy  —  the  joy  of  the 
Greek  itself,  of  the  images  of  the  Greek  life. 
He  walked  with  the  Greek  ploughman,  he  smelt 
the  Greek  earth,  his  thoughts  caressed  the  dark 
oxen  under  the  yoke.  These  for  him  had  savour 
and  delight;  the  wide  Canadian  fields  had  none. 

Philip  Gaddesden  meanwhile  could  not  be 
induced  to  leave  the  car.  While  the  others  were 
going  through  the  splendid  stables  and  cowsheds, 
kept  like  a  queen's  parlour,  he  and  the  pretty 
girl  were  playing  at  bob-cherry  in  the  saloon,  to 
the  scandal  of  Yerkes,  who,  with  the  honour  of 
the  car  and  the  C.  P.  R.  and  Canada  itself  on  his 
shoulders,  could  not  bear  that  any  of  his  charges 
should  shuffle  out  of  the  main  item  in  the  official 
programme. 

But  Elizabeth,  as  before,  saw  everything  trans- 
figured; the  splendid  Shire  horses;  the  famous 
bull,  progenitor  of  a  coming  race;  the  sheds  full 
of  glistening  cow^s  and  mottled  calves.  These 
smooth,  sleek  creatures,  housed  there  for  the 
profit  of  Canada  and  her  farm  life,  seemed  to 
Elizabeth  no  less  poetic  than  the  cattle  of  Helios 
to  Delaine.  She  loved  the  horses,  and  the  patient, 
sweet-breathed  kine;  she  found  even  a  sympathetic 
mind  for  the  pigs. 


78        LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

Presently  when  her  host,  the  owner,  left  her  to 
explain  some  of  his  experiments  to  the  rest  of  the 
party,  she  fell  to  Anderson  alone.  And  as  she 
strolled  at  his  side,  Anderson  found  the  June 
afternoon  pass  with  extraordinary  rapidity.  Yet 
he  was  not  really  as  forthcoming  or  as  frank  as 
he  had  been  the  day  before.  The  more  he  liked 
his  companion,  the  more  he  was  conscious  of 
differences  between  them  which  his  pride  exag- 
gerated. He  himself  had  never  crossed  the 
Atlantic;  but  he  understood  that  she  and  her 
people  were  "swells"  — well-born  in  the  English 
sense,  and  rich.  Secretly  he  credited  them  with 
those  defects  of  English  society  of  which  the  New 
World  talks  —  its  vulgar  standards  and  prejudices. 
There  was  not  a  sign  of  them  certainly  in  Lady 
Merton's  conversation.  But  it  is  easy  to  be 
gracious  in  a  new  country;  and  the  brother  was 
sometimes  inclined  to  give  himself  airs.  Ander- 
son drew  in  his  tentacles  a  little;  ready  indeed  to 
be  wroth  with  himself  that  he  had  talked  so  much 
of  his  own  affairs  to  this  little  lady  the  day  before. 
What  possible  interest  could  she  have  taken  in 
them ! 

All  the  same,  he  could  not  tear  himself  from  her 
side.  Whenever  Delaine  left  his  seat  by  the  lake, 
and  strolled  round  the  corner  of  the  wood  to 
reconnoitre,  the  result  was  always  the  same.     If 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        79 

Anderson  and  Lady  Merton  were  in  sight  at  all, 
near  or  far,  they  were  together.  He  returned, 
disconsolate,  to  Homer  and  the  reeds. 

As  they  went  back  to  Winnipeg,  some  chance 
word  revealed  to  Elizabeth  that  Anderson  also 
was  taking  the  night  train  for  Calgary. 

"Oh!  then  to-morrow  you  will  come  and  talk 
to  us!"  cried  Elizabeth,  delighted. 

Her  cordial  look,  the  pretty  gesture  of  her  head, 
evoked  in  Anderson  a  start  of  pleasure.  He  was 
not,  however,  the  only  spectator  of  them.  Arthur 
Delaine,  standing  by,  thought  for  the  first  time 
in  his  life  that  Elizabeth's  manner  was  really  a 
little  excessive. 

The  car  left  Winnipeg  that  night  for  the  Rockies. 
An  old  man,  in  a  crowded  emigrant  car,  with  a 
bundle  under  his  arm,  watched  the  arrival  of  the 
Gaddesden  party.  He  saw  Anderson  accost 
them  on  the  platform,  and  then  make  his  way 
to  his  own  coach  just  ahead  of  them. 

The  train  sped  westwards  through  the  Manitoba 
farms  and  villages.  Anderson  slept  intermittently, 
haunted  by  various  important  affairs  that  were  on 
his  mind,  and  by  recollections  of  the  afternoon. 
Meanwhile,  in  the  front  of  the  train,  the  paragraph 
from  the  Winnipeg  Chronicle  lay  carefully 
folded  in  an  old  tramp's  waistcoat  pocket. 


CHAPTER  V 


(( 


I  SAY,  Elizabeth,  you're  not  going  to  sit  out 
there  all  day,  and  get  your  death  of  cold  ?  Why 
don't  you  come  in  and  read  a  novel  like  a  sensible 
woman  ?" 

"Because  I  can  read  a  novel  at  home  —  and  I 
can't  see  Canada." 

"See  Canada!  What  is  there  to  see?"  The 
youth  with  the  scornful  voice  came  to  lean  against 
the  doorway  beside  her.  "A  patch  of  corn  — 
miles  and  miles  of  some  withered  stuff  that  calls 
itself  grass,  all  of  it  as  flat  as  your  hand  —  oh! 
and,  by  Jove!  a  little  brown  fellow  —  gopher,  is 
that  their  silly  name  ?  —  scootling  along  the  line. 
Go  it,  young  'un!"  Philip  shied  the  round  end 
of  a  biscuit  tin  after  the  disappearing  brown  thing. 
"A  boggy  lake  with  a  kind  of  salt  fringe  —  un- 
healthy and  horrid  and  beastly  —  a  wretched 
farm  building  —  et  cetera,  et  cetera!" 

"Oh!  look  there,  Philip  —  here  is  a  school!" 

Elizabeth  bent  forward  eagerly.  On  the  bare 
prairie  stood  a  small  white  house,  like  the  house 
that  children  draw  on  their  slates:  a  chimney  in 

80 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        8i 

the  middle,  a  door,  a  window  on  either  side.  Out- 
side, about  twenty  children  playing  and  dancing. 
Inside,  through  the  wide-open  doorway  a  vision 
of  desks  and  a  few  bending  heads. 

Philip's  patience  was  put  to  it.  Had  she  supposed 
that  children  went  without  schools  in  Canada .? 

But  she  took  no  heed  of  him. 

"Look  how  lovely  the  children  are,  and  how 
happy!  What'U  Canada  be  when  they  are  old  ? 
And  not  another  sign  of  habitation  anywhere  — 
nothing  —  but  the  little  house  —  on  the  bare 
wide  earth!  And  there  they  dance,  as  though 
the  world  belonged  to  them.     So  it  does!" 

"And  my  sister  to  a  lunatic  asylum!"  said 
Philip,  exasperated.  "I  say,  why  doesn't  that 
man  Anderson  come  and  see  us  r' 

"He  promised  to  come  in  and  lunch." 

"  He's  an  awfully  decent  kind  of  fellow,"  said 
the  boy  warmly. 

Elizabeth  opened  her  eyes. 

"I  didn't  know  you  had  taken  any  notice  of 
him,  Philip." 

"No  more  I  did,"  was  the  candid  reply.  "But 
did  you  see  what  he  brought  me  this  morning?" 
He  pointed  to  the  seat  behind  him,  littered  with 
novels,  which  Elizabeth  recognized  as  new  addi- 
tions to  their  travelling  store.  "  He  begged  or 
borrowed   them   somewhere   from  his   friends  or 


82        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

people  in  the  hotel;  told  me  frankly  he  knew  I 
should  be  bored  to-day,  and  might  want  them. 
Rather  'cute  of  him,  wasn't  it  ?" 

Elizabeth  was  touched.  Philip  had  certainly 
shown  rather  scant  civility  to  Mr.  Anderson, 
and  this  trait  of  thoughtfulness  for  a  sickly  and 
capricious  traveller  appealed  to  her. 

"I  suppose  Delaine  will  be  here  directly.?" 
Philip  went  on. 

"I  suppose  so." 

Philip  let  himself  down  into  the  seat  beside  her. 

"Look  here,  Elizabeth,"  lowering  his  voice; 
"I  don't  think  Delaine  is  any  more  excited  about 
Canada  than  I  am.  He  told  me  last  night  he 
thought  the  country  about  Winnipeg  perfectly 
hideous." 

''Oh!''  cried  Elizabeth,  as  though  someone  had 
flipped  her. 

"You'll  have  to  pay  him  for  this  journey, 
Elizabeth.     Why  did  you  ask  him  to  come  ?" 

"I  didnt  ask  him,  PhiHp.     He  asked  himself." 

"Ah!  but  you  let  him  come,"  said  the  youth 
shrewdly.  "  I  think,  Elizabeth,  you're  not  behav- 
ing quite  nicely." 

"How  am  I  not  behaving  nicely?" 

"Well,  you  don't  pay  any  attention  to  him. 
Do  you  know  what  he  was  doing  vs^hile  you  were 
looking  at  the  cows  yesterday.?" 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        83 

Elizabeth  reluctantly  confessed  that  she  had 
no  idea. 

"Well,  he  was  sitting  by  a  lake  —  a  kind  of 
swamp  —  at  the  back  of  the  house,  reading  a 
book."     Philip  went  off  into  a  fit  of  laughter. 

"Poor  Mr.  Delaine!"  cried  EHzabeth,  though 
she  too  laughed.  "It  was  probably  Greek,"  she 
added  pensively. 

"Well,  that's  funnier  still.  You  know,  Eliza- 
beth, he  could  read  Greek  at  home.  It's  because 
you  were  neglecting  him." 

"Don't  rub  it  in,  Philip,"  said  Elizabeth,  flush- 
ing. Then  she  moved  up  to  him  and  laid  a  coax- 
ing hand  on  his  arm.  "Do  you  know  that  I  have 
been  awake  half  the  night .?" 

"All  along  of  Delaine  .?     Shall  I  tell  him  .?" 

"Philip,  I  just  want  you  to  be  a  dear,  and  hold 
your  tongue,"  said  Lady  Merton  entreatingly. 
"When  there's  anything  to  tell,  I'll  tell  you. 
And  if  I  have " 

"Have  what.?" 

"  Behaved  like  a  fool,  you'll  have  to  stand  by 
me."  An  expression  of  pain  passed  over  her 
face. 

"Oh,  I'll  stand  by  you.  I  don't  know  that  I 
want  Mr.  Arthur  for  an  extra  bear-leader,  if 
that's  what  you  mean.  You  and  mother  are  quite 
enough.     PIullo!     Here  he  is." 


§4        LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST 

A  little  later  Delaine  and  Elizabeth  were  sit- 
ting side  by  side  on  the  garden  chairs,  four  of 
which  could  just  be  fitted  into  the  little  railed 
platform  at  the  rear  of  the  car.  Elizabeth  was 
making  herself  agreeable,  and  doing  it,  for  a  time, 
with  energy.  Nothing  also  could  have  been 
more  energetic  than  Delaine's  attempts  to  meet 
her.  He  had  been  studying  Baedeker,  and  he 
made  intelligent  travellers'  remarks  on  the  subject 
of  Southern  Saskatchewan.  He  discussed  the 
American  "trek"  into  the  province  from  the 
adjoining  States.  He  understood  the  new  public 
buildings  of  Regina  were  to  be  really  fine,  only  to  be 
surpassed  by  those  at  Edmonton.  He  admired  the 
effects  of  light  and  shadow  on  the  wide  expanse; 
and  noticed  the  peculiarities  of  the  alkaline  lakes. 

Meanwhile,  as  he  became  more  expansive, 
Elizabeth  contracted.  One  would  have  thought 
soon  that  Canada  had  ceased  to  interest  her  at 
all.  She  led  him  slyly  on  to  other  topics,  and 
presently  the  real  Arthur  Delaine  emerged.  Had 
she  heard  of  the  most  recent  Etruscan  excavations 
at  Grosseto  .f*  Wonderful!  A  whole  host  of  new 
clues!  Boni  —  Lanciani  —  the  whole  learned 
world  in  commotion.  A  fragment  of  what  might 
very  possibly  turn  out  to  be  a  bi-lingual  inscrip- 
tion was  the  last  find.  Were  we  at  last  on  the 
brink  of  solving  the  old,  the  eternal  enigma  ? 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        85 

He  threw  himself  back  in  his  chair,  transformed 
once  more  into  the  talkative,  agreeable  person 
that  Europe  knew.  His  black  and  grizzled  hair, 
falling  perpetually  forward  in  strong  waves,  made 
a  fine  frame  for  his  grey  eyes  and  large,  well-cut 
features.  He  had  a  slight  stammer,  which  increased 
when  he  was  animated,  and  a  trick  of  forever 
pushing  back  the  troublesome  front  locks  of  hair. 

Elizabeth  listened  for  a  long,  long  time,  and 
at  last  —  could  have  cried  like  a  baby  because  she 
was  missing  so  much!  There  was  a  chance,  she 
knew,  all  along  this  portion  of  the  line,  of  seeing 
antelope  and  coyotes,  if  only  one  kept  one's  eyes 
open;  not  to  speak  of  the  gophers  —  enchanting 
little  fellows,  quite  new  to  such  travellers  as  she  — 
who  seemed  to  choose  the  very  railway  line  itself, 
by  preference,  for  their  burrowings  and  their 
social  gatherings.  Then,  as  she  saw,  the  wheat 
country  was  nearly  done;  a  great  change  was 
in  progress;  her  curiosity  sprang  to  meet  it. 
Droves  of  horses  and  cattle  began  to  appear  at 
rare  intervals  on  the  vast  expanse.  No  white, 
tree-sheltered  farms  here,  like  the  farms  in  Mani- 
toba; but  scattered  at  long  distances,  near  the 
railway  or  on  the  horizon,  the  first  primitive 
dwellings  of  the  new  settlers  —  the  rude  "shack" 
of  the  first  year  —  beginnings  of  villages  — 
sketches  of  towns. 


86         LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

"I  have  always  thought  the  Etruscan  problem 
the  most  fascinating  in  the  whole  world,"  cried 
Delaine,  with  pleasant  enthusiasm.  "When  you 
consider  all  its  bearings,  linguistic  and  his- 
torical   " 

"Oh!  do  you  see,"  exclaimed  Elizabeth,  point- 
ing —  "Jo  you  see  all  those  lines  and  posts,  far  out 
to  the  horizon  ?  Do  you  know  that  all  these 
lonely  farms  are  connected  with  each  other  and 
the  railway  by  telephones  ?  Mr.  Anderson  told 
me  so;  that  some  farmers  actually  make  their 
fences  into  telephone  lines,  and  that  from  that 
little  hut  over  there  you  can  speak  to  Montreal 
when  you  please  .?  And  just  before  I  left  London 
I  was  staying  in  a  big  country  house,  thirty  miles 
from  Hyde  Park  Corner,  and  you  couldn't  tele- 
phone to  London  except  by  driving  five  miles  to 
the  nearest  town!" 

"I  wonder  why  that  should  strike  you  so  much 
—  the  telephones,  I  mean  ?" 

Delaine's  tone  was  stiff.  He  had  thrown  him- 
self back  in  his  chair  with  folded  arms,  and  a 
slight  look  of  patience.  "After  all,  you  know, 
it  may  only  be  one  dull  person  telephoning  to 
another  dull  person  —  on  subjects  that  don't 
matter!" 

Elizabeth  laughed  and  coloured. 

"Oh!     it     isn't     telephones     in     themselves. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        87 

It's "  She  hesitated,  and  began  again,  try- 
ing to  express  herself,  "When  one  thinks  of 
all  the  haphazard  of  history  —  how  nations  have 
tumbled  up,  or  been  dragged  up,  through  cen- 
turies of  blind  horror  and  mistake,  how  wonderful 
to  see  a  nation  made  consciously!  —  before  your 
eyes  —  by  science  and  inteUigence  —  everything 
thought  of,  everything  foreseen!  First  of  all, 
this  wonderful  railway,  driven  across  these  deserts, 
against  opposition,  against  unbelief,  by  a  handful 
of  men,  who  risked  everything,  and  have  —  per- 
haps —  changed  the  face  of  the  world!" 

She  stopped  smiling.  In  truth,  her  new  capa- 
city for  dithyramb  was  no  less  surprising  to  herself 
than  to  Delaine. 

"I  return  to  my  point"  —  he  made  it  not  with- 
out tartness  —  "will  the  new  men  be  adequate  to 
the  new  state  V' 

"Won't  they.?"  He  fancied  a  certain  pride 
in  her  bearing.  "They  explained  to  me  the 
other  day  at  Winnipeg  what  the  Government  do 
for  the  emigrants  —  how  they  guide  and  help 
them  —  take  care  of  them  in  sickness  and  in 
trouble,  through  the  first  years  —  protect  them, 
really,  even  from  themselves.  And  one  thinks 
how  Governments  have  taxed,  and  tortured,  and 
robbed,  and  fleeced  —  Oh,  surely,  surely,  the 
world  improves!"     She  clasped  her  hands  tightly 


SS        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

on  her  knee,  as  though  trying  by  the  physical 
action  to  restrain  the  feehng  within,  "And  to 
see  here  the  actual  foundations  of  a  great  state 
laid  under  your  eyes,  deep  and  strong,  by  men 
who  know  what  it  is  they  are  doing  —  to  see  his- 
tory begun  on  a  blank  page,  by  men  who  know 
what  they  are  writing  —  isn't  it  wonderful, 
wonderful!" 

"Dear  lady!"  said  Delaine,  smiling,  "America 
has  been  dealing  with  emigrants  for  generations; 
and  there  are  people  who  say  that  corruption  is 
rife  in  Canada." 

But  Elizabeth  would  not  be  quenched. 

"We  come  after  America  —  we  climb  on  her 
great  shoulders  to  see  the  way.  But  is  there 
anything  in  America  to  equal  the  suddenness  of 
this  ^  Twelve  years  ago  even  —  in  all  this  North- 
west—  practically  nothing.  And  then  God  said: 
'Let  there  be  a  nation!'  —  and  there  was  a  nation 
—  in  a  night  and  a  morning."  She  waved  her 
hand  towards  the  great  expanse  of  prairie.  "And 
as  for  corruption " 

"Well?"     He  waited  maliciously. 

"There  is  no  great  brew  without  a  scum,"  she 
said  laughing.  "  But  find  me  a  brew  anywhere 
in  the  world,  of  such  power,  with  so  little." 

"Mr.  Anderson  would,  I  think,  be  pleased  with 
you,"  said  Delaine,  drily. 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST        89 

Elizabeth  frowned  a  little. 

"  Do  you  think  I  learnt  it  from  him  ?  I  assure 
you  he  never  rhapsodises." 

"No;  but  he  gives  you  the  material  for  rhap- 
les. 

"And  why  not?"  said  Elizabeth  indignantly. 
"If  he  didn't  love  the  country  and  believe  in  it 
he  wouldn't  be  going  into  its  public  life.  You 
can  feel  that  he  is  Canadian  through  and  through." 

"A  farmer's  son,  I  think,  from  Manitoba  .?" 

"Yes."     Elizabeth's  tone  was  a  little  defensive. 

"Will  you  not  sometimes  —  if  you  watch  his 
career  —  regret  that,  with  his  ability,  he  has  not 
the  environment  —  and  the  audience  —  of  the 
Old  World?" 

"No,  never!  He  will  be  one  of  the  shapers  of 
the  new." 

Delaine  looked  at  her  with  a  certain  passion. 

"All  very  well,  but  you  don't  belong  to  it.  We 
can't  spare  you  from  the  old." 

"Oh,  as  for  me,  I'm  full  of  vicious  and  cor- 
rupt habits!"  put  in  Elizabeth  hurriedly.  "I 
am  not  nearly  good  enough  for  the  new!" 

"Thank  goodness  for  that!"  said  Delaine  fer- 
vently, and,  bending  forward,  he  tried  to  see  her 
face.  But  Elizabeth  did  not  allow  it.  She  could 
not  help  flushing;  but  as  she  bent  over  the  side  of 
the   platform   looking   ahead,   she   announced   in 


90        LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

her  gayest  voice  that  there  was  a  town  to  be  seen, 
and  it  was  probably  Regina. 

The  station  at  Regina,  when  they  steamed  into 
it,  was  crowded  with  folk,  and  gay  with  flags. 
Anderson,  after  a  conversation  with  the  station- 
master,  came  to  the  car  to  say  that  the  Governor- 
General,  Lord  Wrekin,  who  had  been  addressing 
a  meeting  at  Regina,  was  expected  immediately, 
to  take  the  East-bound  train;  which  was  indeed 
already  lying,  with  its  steam  up,  on  the  further 
side  of  the  station,  the  Viceregal  car  in  its  rear. 

"But  there  are  complications.     Look  there!" 

He  pointed  to  a  procession  coming  along  the 
platform.  Six  men  bore  a  coffin  covered  with 
white  flowers.  Behind  it  came  persons  in  black, 
a  group  of  men,  and  one  woman;  then  others, 
mostly  young  men,  also  in  mourning,  and  bare- 
headed. 

As  the  procession  passed  the  car,  Anderson  and 
Delaine  uncovered. 

Elizabeth  turned  a  questioning  look  on 
Anderson. 

"A  young  man  from  Ontario,"  he  explained, 
"quite  a  lad.  He  had  come  here  out  West  to  a 
farm  —  to  work  his  way  —  a  good,  harmless 
little  fellow  —  the  son  of  a  widow.  A  week  ago 
a  vicious  horse  kicked  him  in  the  stable.     He  died 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST        91 

yesterday  morning.  They  are  taking  him  back  to 
Ontario  to  be  buried.  The  friends  of  his  chapel 
subscribed  to  do  it,  and  they  brought  his  mother 
here  to  nurse  him.  She  arrived  just  in  time. 
That  is  she." 

He  pointed  to  the  bowed  figure,  hidden  in  a  long 
crape  veil.     Elizabeth's  eyes  filled. 

"But  it  comes  awkwardly,"  Anderson  went  on, 
looking  back  along  the  platform  —  "  for  the  Gov- 
ernor-General is  expected  this  very  moment. 
The  funeral  ought  to  have  been  here  half  an  hour 
ago.  They  seem  to  have  been  delayed.  Ah! 
here  he  is!" 

"Elizabeth!  —  his  Excellency!"  cried  Philip, 
emerging  from  the  car. 

"Hush!"  Elizabeth  put  her  finger  to  her  lip. 
The  young  man  looked  at  the  funeral  procession 
in  astonishment,  which  was  just  reaching  the  side 
of  the  empty  van  on  the  East-bound  train  which 
was  waiting,  with  wide-open  doors,  to  receive  the 
body.  The  bearers  let  down  the  coffin  gently  to 
the  ground,  and  stood  waiting  in  hesitation.  But 
there  were  no  railway  employes  to  help  them. 
A  flurried  station-master  and  his  staff  were  receiv- 
ing the  official  party.  Suddenly  someone  started 
the  revival  hymn,  "Shall  We  Gather  at  the  River  ?" 
It  was  taken  up  vigorously  by  the  thirty  or  forty 
young  men  who  had  followed  the  coffin,  and  tlieir 


92         LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

voices,    rising    and    falling   in    a    familiar    lilting 
melody,  filled  the  station: 

Yes,  we'll  gather  at  the  river, 
The  beautiful,  beautiful  river  — 
Gather  with  the  saints  at  the  river, 
That  flows  by  the  throne  of  God! 

Elizabeth  looked  towards  the  entrance  of  the 
station,  A  tall  and  slender  man  had  just  stepped 
on  to  the  platform.  It  was  the  Governor-General, 
with  a  small  staff  behind  him.  The  staff  and  the 
station  officials  stood  hat  in  hand.  A  few  English 
tourists  from  the  West-bound  train  hurried  up; 
the  men  uncovered,  the  ladies  curtsied.  A  group 
of  settlers'  wives  newly  arrived  from  Minnesota, 
who  were  standing  near  the  entrance,  watched  the 
arrival  with  curiosity.  Lord  Wrekin,  seeing 
women  in  his  path,  saluted  them;  and  they  replied 
with  a  friendly  and  democratic  nod.  Then  sud- 
denly the  Governor-General  heard  the  singing, 
and  perceived  the  black  distant  crowd.  He 
inquired  of  the  persons  near  him,  and  then  passed 
on  through  the  groups  which  had  begun  to  gather 
round  himself,  raising  his  hand  for  silence.  The 
passengers  of  the  West-bound  train  had  by  now 
mostly  descended,  and  pressed  after  him.  Bare- 
headed, he  stood  behind  the  mourners  while  the 
hymn  proceeded,  and  the  coffin  was  lifted  and 
placed  in  the  car  with  the  wreaths  round  it.     The 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        93 

mother  clung  a  moment  to  the  side  of  the  door, 
unconsciously  resisting  those  who  tried  to  lead 
her  away.  The  kind  grey  eyes  of  the  Governor- 
General  rested  upon  her,  but  he  made  no  effort 
to  approach  or  speak  to  her.  Only  his  stillness 
kept  the  crowd  still. 

Elizabeth  at  her  window  watched  the  scene  — 
the  tall  figure  of  his  Excellency  —  the  bowed 
woman  —  the  throng  of  officials  and  of  mourners. 
Over  the  head  of  the  Governor-General  a  couple 
of  flags  swelled  in  a  light  breeze  —  the  Union 
Jack  and  the  Maple  Leaf;  beyond  the  heads  of 
the  crowd  there  was  a  distant  glimpse  of  the  bar- 
racks of  the  Mounted  Police;  and  then  boundless 
prairie  and  floating  cloud. 

At  last  the  mother  yielded,  and  was  led  to  the 
carriage  behind  the  coffin.  Gently,  with  bent 
head,  Lord  Wrekin  made  his  way  to  her.  But 
no  one  heard  what  passed  between  them.  Then, 
silently,  the  funeral  crowed  dispersed,  and  another 
crowd  —  of  officials  and  business  men  —  claimed 
the  Governor-General.  Standing  in  its  midst,  he 
turned  for  a  moment  to  scan  the  West-bound  train. 

**Ah,  Lady  Merton!'*  He  had  perceived  the 
car  and  Elizabeth's  face  at  the  window,  and  he 
hastened  across  to  speak  to  her.  They  were  old 
friends  in  England,  and  they  had  already  met  in 
Ottawa. 


94        LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

"So  I  find  you  on  your  travels!     Well  ?'* 

His  look,  gay  and  vivacious  as  a  boy's,  interro- 
gated hers.  Elizabeth  stammered  a  few  words  in 
praise  of  Canada.  But  her  eyes  were  still  wet, 
and  the  Governor-General  perceived  it. 

"That  was  touching.?'*  he  said.  "To  die  in 
your  teens  in  this  country! — just  as  the  curtain 
is  up  and  the  play  begins  —  hard!  Hullo, 
Anderson!'* 

The  great  man  extended  a  cordial  hand,  chaffed 
Philip  a  little,  gave  Lady  Merton  some  hurried 
but  very  precise  directions  as  to  what  she  was  to 
see  —  and  whom  —  at  Vancouver  and  Pretoria. 
"You  must  see  So-and-so  and  So-and-so  —  great 

friends  of  mine.     D '11  tell  you  all  about  the 

lumbering.  Get  somebody  to  show  you  the 
Chinese  quarter.  And  there's  a  splendid  old 
fellow  —  a  C.P.R.  man  —  did  some  of  the  pros- 
pecting for  the  railway  up  North,  toward  the 
Yellowhead.  Never  heard  such  tales;  I  could 
have  sat  up  all  night."  He  hastily  scribbled  a 
name  on  a  card  and  gave  it  to  EHzabeth.  "  Good- 
bye —  good-bye ! " 

He  hastened  off,  but  they  saw  him  standing  a 
few  moments  longer  on  the  platform,  the  centre  of 
a  group  of  provincial  politicians,  farmers,  railway 
superintendents,  and  others  —  his  hat  on  the  back 
of  his  head,  his  pleasant  laugh  ringing  every  now 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST        95 

and  then  above  the  clatter  of  talk.  Then  came 
departure,  and  at  the  last  moment  he  jumped  into 
his  carriage,  talking  and  talked  to,  almost  till  it 
had  left  the  platform. 

Anderson  hailed  a  farming  acquaintance. 

"\Vell?  What  has  the  Governor-General  been 
doing  ?" 

"Speaking  at  a  Farmers'  Conference.  Awful 
shindy  yesterday!  —  between  the  farmers  and  the 
millers.  Row  about  the  elevators.  The  farmers 
want  the  Dominion  to  own  'em  —  vow  they're 
cheated  and  bullied,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  Row 
about  the  railway,  too.  Shortage  of  cars;  you 
know  the  old  story.  A  regular  wasp's  nest,  the 
whole  thing!  Well,  the  Governor-General  came 
this  morning,  and  everything's  blown  over!  Can't 
remember  what  he  said,  but  we're  all  sure  some- 
body's going  to  do  something.  Hope  you  know 
how  he  does  it!  —  I  don't." 

Anderson  laughed  as  he  sat  down  beside  Eliz- 
abeth, and  the  train  began  to  move. 

"We  seem  to  send  you  the  right  men!"  she 
said,  smiling  —  with  a  little  English  conceit  that 
became  her. 

The  train  left  the  station.  As  it  did  so,  an  old 
man  in  the  first  emigrant  car,  who,  during  the  wait 
at  Regina,  had  appeared  to  be  asleep  in  a  corner, 
with  a  battered  slouch  hat  drawn  down  over  his 


96        LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

eyes  and   face,  stealthily  moved  to  the  window, 
and  looked  back  upon  the  now  empty  platform. 

Some  hours  later  Anderson  was  still  sitting 
beside  Elizabeth.  They  were  in  Southern  Alberta. 
The  June  day  had  darkened.  And  for  the  first 
time  Elizabeth  felt  the  chill  and  loneliness  of  the 
prairies,  where  as  yet  she  had  only  felt  their 
exhilaration.  A  fierce  wind  was  sweeping  over 
the  boundless  land,  with  showers  in  its  train.  The 
signs  of  habitation  became  scantier,  the  farms 
fewer.  Bunches  of  horses  and  herds  of  cattle 
widely  scattered  over  the  endless  grassy  plains  — 
the  brown  lines  of  the  ploughed  fire-guards  run- 
ning beside  the  railway  —  the  bents  of  winter 
grass,  white  in  the  storm-light,  bleaching  the  roll- 
ing surface  of  the  ground,  till  the  darkness  of  some 
cloud-shadow  absorbed  them;  these  things  breathed 
—  of  a  sudden  —  wildness  and  desolation.  It 
seemed  as  though  man  could  no  longer  cope  with 
the  mere  vastness  of  the  earth  —  an  earth  without 
rivers  or  trees,  too  visibly  naked  and  measureless. 

*'At  last  I  am  afraid  of  it!"  said  Elizabeth, 
shivering  in  her  fur  coat,  with  a  little  motion  of  her 
hand  toward  the  plain.  "And  what  must  it  be 
in  winter!" 

Anderson  laughed. 

"The    winter    is    much    milder    here    than    in 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST        97 

Manitoba!  Radiant  sunshine  day  after  day  — 
and  the  warm  chinook-wind.  And  it  is  precisely 
here  that  the  railway  lands  are  selling  at  a  higher 
price  for  the  moment  than  anywhere  else,  and  that 
settlers  are  rushing  in.     Look  there! " 

Elizabeth  peered  through  the  gloom,  and  saw 
the  gleam  of  water.  The  train  ran  along  beside 
it  for  a  minute  or  two,  then  the  gathering  dark- 
ness seemed  to  swallow  it  up. 

"A  river?" 

"No,  a  canal,  fed  from  the  Bow  River  —  far 
ahead  of  us.  We  are  in  the  irrigation  belt  —  and 
in  the  next  few  years  thousands  of  people  will  settle 
here.  Give  the  land  water  —  the  wheat  follows! 
South  and  North,  even  now,  the  wheat  is  spread- 
ing and  driving  out  the  ranchers.  Irrigation  is  the 
secret.  We  are  mastering  it!  And  you  thought" 
—  he  looked  at  her  with  amusement  and  a  kind  of 
triumph  —  "that  the  country  had  mastered  us  ?" 

There  was  something  in  his  voice  and  eyes,  as 
though  not  he  spoke,  but  a  nation  through  him. 
"Splendid!"  was  the  word  that  rose  in  Elizabeth's 
mind;  and  a  thrill  ran  with  it. 

The  gloom  of  the  afternoon  deepened.  The 
showers  increased.  But  Elizabeth  could  not  be 
prevailed  upon  to  go  in.  In  the  car  Delaine 
and  Philip  were  playing  dominoes,  in  despair  of 
anything  more  amusing.     Yerkes  was  giving  his 


98        LADY  MERTON,    COLONIST 

great  mind  to  the  dinner  which  was  to  be  the 
consolation  of  Philip's  day. 

Meanwhile  Elizabeth  kept  Anderson  talking. 
That  was  her  great  gift.  She  was  the  best  of  lis- 
teners. Thus  led  on  he  could  not  help  himself, 
any  more  than  he  had  been  able  to  help  himself 
on  the  afternoon  of  the  sink-hole.  He  had  meant 
to  hold  himself  strictly  in  hand  with  this  too  attrac- 
tive Englishwoman.  On  the  contrary,  he  had 
never  yet  poured  out  so  frankly  to  mortal  ear  the 
inmost  dreams  and  hopes  which  fill  the  ablest 
minds  of  Canada  —  dreams  half  imagination,  half 
science;  and  hopes  which,  yesterday  romance, 
become  reality  to-morrow. 

He  showed  her,  for  instance,  the  great  Govern- 
ment farms  as  they  passed  them,  standing  white 
and  trim  upon  the  prairie,  and  bade  her  think  of  the 
busy  brains  at  work  there  —  magicians  conjuring 
new  wheats  that  will  ripen  before  the  earliest 
frosts,  and  so  draw  onward  the  warm  tide  of 
human  life  over  vast  regions  now  desolate;  or 
trees  that  will  stand  firm  against  the  prairie  winds, 
and  in  the  centuries  to  come  turn  this  bare  and 
boundless  earth,  this  sea-floor  of  a  primeval  ocean, 
which  is  now  Western  Canada,  into  a  garden  of 
the  Lord.  Or  from  the  epic  of  the  soil,  he  would 
slip  on  to  the  human  epic  bound  up  with  it  — 
tale   after   tale   of  life   in   the   ranching   country, 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST        99 

and  of  the  emigration  now  pouring  into  Alberta  — 
witched  out  of  him  by  this  dehcately  eager  face, 
these  lovely  listening  eyes.  And  here,  in  spite  of 
his  blunt,  simple  speech,  came  out  the  deeper 
notes  of  feeling,  feeling  richly  steeped  in  those 
"mortal  things"  —  earthy,  tender,  humorous, 
or  terrible  —  which  make  up  human  fate. 

Had  he  talked  like  this  to  the  Catholic  girl  in 
Quebec  ?  And  yet  she  had  renounced  him  ? 
She  had  never  loved  him,  of  course!  To  love 
this  man  would  be  to  cleave  to  him. 

Once,  in  a  lifting  of  the  shadows  of  the  prairie, 
Elizabeth  saw  a  group  of  antelope  standing  only 
a  few  hundred  yards  from  the  train,  tranquilly 
indifferent,  their  branching  horns  clear  in  a  pallid 
ray  of  light;  and  once  a  prairie-wolf,  solitary  and 
motionless;  and  once,  as  the  train  moved  off  after 
a  stoppage,  an  old  badger  leisurely  shambling  off 
the  line  itself.  And  once,  too,  amid  a  driving 
storm-shower,  and  what  seemed  to  her  unbroken 
formless  solitudes,  suddenly,  a  tent  by  the  railway 
side,  and  the  blaze  of  a  fire;  and  as  the  train  slowly 
passed,  three  men  —  lads  rather  —  emerging  to 
laugh  and  beckon  to  it.  The  tent,  the  fire,  the 
gay  challenge  of  the  young  faces  and  the  English 
voices,  ringed  by  darkness  and  wild  weather, 
brought  the  tears  back  to  Elizabeth's  eyes,  she 
scarcely  knew  why. 


100       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

"Settlers,  in  their  first  year,"  said  Anderson, 
smiling,  as  he  waved  back  again. 

But,  to  Elizabeth,  it  seemed  a  parable  of  the  new 
Canada. 

An  hour  later,  amid  a  lightening  of  the  clouds 
over  the  West,  that  spread  a  watery  gold  over  the 
prairie,  Anderson  sprang  to  his  feet. 

"The  Rockies!" 

And  there,  a  hundred  miles  away,  peering  over 
the  edge  of  the  land,  ran  from  north  to  south  a  vast 
chain  of  snow  peaks,  and  Elizabeth  saw  at  last  that 
€ven  the  prairies  have  an  end. 

The  car  was  shunted  at  Calgary,  in  order  that 
its  occupants  might  enjoy  a  peaceful  night.  When 
she  found  herself  alone  in  her  tiny  room,  Elizabeth 
stood  for  a  while  before  her  reflection  in  the  glass. 
Her  eyes  were  frowning  and  distressed;  her  cheeks 
glowed.  Arthur  Delaine,  her  old  friend,  had 
bade  her  a  cold  good  night,  and  she  knew  well 
enough  that  —  from  him  —  she  deserved  it.  "Yet 
I  gave  him  the  whole  morning,"  she  pleaded  with 
herself.  "I  did  my  best.  But  oh,  why,  why  did 
I  ever  let  him  come!" 

And  even  in  the  comparative  quiet  of  the  car 
at  rest,  she  could  not  sleep;  so  quickened  were  all 
her  pulses,  and  so  vivid  the  memories  of  the  day. 


CHAPTER  VI 

Arthur  Delaine  was  strolling  and  smoking 
on  the  broad  wooden  balcony,  which  in  the  rear 
of  the  hotel  at  Banff  overlooks  a  wide  scene  of 
alp  and  water.  The  splendid  Bow  River  comes 
swirling  past  the  hotel,  on  its  rush  from  the  high 
mountains  to  the  plains  of  Saskatchewan.  Craggy 
mountains  drop  almost  to  the  river's  edge  on  one 
side;  on  the  other,  pine  woods  mask  the  railway 
and  the  hills;  while  in  the  distance  shine  the  snow- 
peaks  of  the  Rockies.  It  is  the  gateway  of  the 
mountains,  fair  and  widely  spaced,  as  becomes 
their  dignity. 

Delaine,  however,  was  not  observing  the  scenery. 
He  was  entirely  absorbed  by  reflection  on  his  own 
affairs.  The  party  had  now  been  stationary  for 
three  or  four  days  at  Banff,  enjoying  the  comforts 
of  hotel  life.  The  travelling  companion  on  whom 
Delaine  had  not  calculated  in  joining  Lady  Merton 
and  her  brother  —  Mr.  George  Anderson  —  had 
taken  his  leave,  temporarily,  at  Calgary.  In 
thirty-six  hours,  however,  he  had  reappeared. 
It  seemed  that  the  construction  work  in  which 

lOI 


102       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

he    was    engaged    in    the    C valley    did    not 

urgently  require  his  presence;  that  his  position 
towards  the  railway,  with  which  he  was  about  to 
sever  his  official  connection,  was  one  of  great  free- 
dom and  influence,  owing,  no  doubt,  to  the  ser- 
vices he  had  been  able  to  render  it  the  year  before. 
He  was,  in  fact,  master  of  his  time,  and  meant  to 
spend  it  apparently  in  making  Lady  Merton's 
tour  agreeable. 

For  himself,  Delaine  could  only  feel  that  the 
advent  of  this  stranger  had  spoilt  the  whole  situa- 
tion. It  seemed  now  as  though  Elizabeth  and  her 
brother  could  not  get  on  without  him.  As  he  leant 
over  the  railing  of  the  balcony,  Delaine  could  see 
far  below,  in  the  wood,  the  flutter  of  a  white  dress. 
It  belonged  to  Lady  Merton,  and  the  man  beside 
her  was  George  Anderson.  He  had  been  arrang- 
ing their  walks  and  expeditions  for  the  last  four 
days,  and  was  now  about  to  accompany  the 
English  travellers  on  a  special  journey  with  a 
special  engine  through  the  Kicking  Horse  Pass 
and  back,  a  pleasure  suggested  by  the  kindness  of 
the  railway  authorities. 

It  was  true  that  he  had  at  one  time  been  actively 
engaged  on  the  important  engineering  work  now 
in  progress  in  the  pass;  and  Lady  Merton  could 
not,  therefore,  have  found  a  better  showman. 
But  why  any  showman  at  all  I     What  did  she 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST       103 

know  about  this  man  who  had  sprung  so  rapidly 
into  intimacy  with  herself  and  her  brother  ? 
Yet  Delaine  could  not  honestly  accuse  him  of 
presuming  on  a  chance  acquaintance,  since  it 
was  not  to  be  denied  that  it  was  Philip  Gaddesden 
himself,  who  had  taken  an  invalid's  capricious 
liking  to  the  tall,  fair-haired  fellow,  and  had 
urgently  requested  —  almost  forced  him  to  come 
back  to  them. 

Delaine  was  not  a  little  bruised  in  spirit,  and 
beginning  to  be  angry.  During  the  solitary  day 
he  had  been  alone  with  them  Elizabeth  had  been 
kindness  and  complaisance  itself.  But  instead 
of  that  closer  acquaintance,  that  opportunity  for 
a  gradual  and  delightful  courtship  on  which  he 
had  reckoned,  when  the  restraint  of  watching  eyes 
and  neighbourly  tongues  should  be  removed,  he 
was  conscious  that  he  had  never  been  so  remote 
from  her  during  the  preceding  winter  at  home, 
as  he  was  now  that  he  had  journeyed  six  thousand 
miles  simply  and  solely  on  the  chance  of  pro- 
posing to  her.  He  could  not  understand  how  any- 
thing so  disastrous,  and  apparently  so  final,  could 
have  happened  to  him  in  one  short  week!  Lady 
Merton  —  he  saw  quite  plainly  —  did  not  mean 
him  to  propose  to  her,  if  she  could  possibly  avoid 
it.  She  kept  Philip  with  her,  and  gave  no  oppor- 
tunities.    And   always,   as   before,   she   was   pos- 


104       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

sessed  and  bewitched  by  Canada!  Moreover, 
the  Chief  Justice  and  the  French  Canadian, 
Mariette,  had  turned  up  at  the  hotel  two  days 
before,  on  their  way  to  Vancouver.  EHzabeth 
had  been  sitting,  figuratively,  at  the  feet  of  both 
of  them  ever  since;  and  both  had  accepted  an 
invitation  to  join  in  the  Kicking  Horse  party, 
and  were  delaying  their  journey  West  accordingly. 
Instead  of  solitude,  therefore.  Delaine  was 
aware  of  a  most  troublesome  amount  of  society. 
Aware  also,  deep  down,  that  some  test  he  resented 
but  could  not  escape  had  been  applied  to  him  on 
this  journey,  by  fortune  —  and  Elizabeth!  — 
and  that  he  was  not  standing  it  well.  And  the 
worst  of  it  was  that  as  his  discouragement  in  the 
matter  of  Lady  Merton  increased,  so  also  did  his 
distaste  for  this  raw,  new  country,  without  asso- 
ciations, without  art,  without  antiquities,  in  which 
he  should  never,  never  have  chosen  to  spend  one 
of  his  summers  of  this  short  life,  but  for  the 
charms  of  Elizabeth!  And  the  more  boredom 
he  was  conscious  of,  the  less  congenial  and  sym- 
pathetic, naturally,  did  he  become  as  a  companion 
for  Lady  Merton.  Of  this  he  was  dismally  aware. 
Well!  he  hoped,  bitterly,  that  she  knew  what  she 
was  about,  and  could  take  care  of  herself.  This 
man  she  had  made  friends  with  was  good-looking 
and,   by  his   record,   possessed   ability.     He   had 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST       105 

fairly  gentlemanly  manners,  also;  though,  in 
Delaine's  opinion,  he  was  too  self-confident  on  his 
own  account,  and  too  boastful  on  Canada's. 
But  he  was  a  man  of  humble  origin,  son  of  a  farmer 
who  seemed,  by  the  way,  to  be  dead;  and  grandson, 
so  Delaine  had  heard  him  say,  through  his  mother, 
of  one  of  the  Selkirk  settlers  of  18 12  —  no  doubt 
of  some  Scotch  gillie  or  shepherd.  Such  a  person, 
in  England,  would  have  no  claim  whatever  to  the 
intimate  society  of  Elizabeth  Merton.  Yet  here 
she  was  alone,  really  without  protection  —  for 
what  use  was  this  young,  scatter-brained  brother  ? 
—  herself  only  twenty-seven,  and  so  charming! 
so  much  prettier  than  she  had  ever  seemed  to  be 
at  home.  It  was  a  dangerous  situation  —  a  situa- 
tion to  which  she  ought  not  to  have  been  exposed. 
Delaine  had  always  believed  her  sensitive  and 
fastidious;  and  in  his  belief  all  women  should  be 
sensitive  and  fastidious,  especially  as  to  who  are, 
and  who  are  not,  their  social  equals.  But  it  was 
clear  he  had  not  quite  understood  her.  And 
this  man  whom  they  had  picked  up  was  undoubt- 
edly handsome,  strong  and  masterful,  of  the  kind 
that  the  natural  woman  admires.  But  then  he  — 
Delaine  —  had  never  thought  of  Elizabeth  Mer- 
ton as  the  natural  woman.  There  lay  the  dis- 
appointment. 

What  was  his  own  course  to  be  .?     He  believed 


io6       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

himself  defeated,  but  to  show  any  angry  con- 
sciousness of  it  would  be  to  make  life  very  uncom- 
fortable in  future,  seeing  that  he  and  the  Gaddes- 
dens  were  inevitably  neighbours  and  old  friends. 
After  all,  he  had  not  committed  himself  beyond 
repair.  Why  not  resume  the  friendly  relation 
which  had  meant  so  much  to  him  before  other 
ideas  had  entered  in?  Ah!  it  was  no  longer 
easy.  The  distress  of  which  he  was  conscious 
had  some  deep  roots.  He  must  marry  —  the 
estate  demanded  it.  But  his  temperament  was 
invincibly  cautious;  his  mind  moved  slowly. 
How  was  he  to  begin  upon  any  fresh  quest  ^ 
His  quiet  pursuit  of  Elizabeth  had  come  about 
naturally  and  by  degrees.  Propinquity  had  done 
it.  And  now  that  his  hopes  were  dashed,  he  could 
not  imagine  how  he  was  to  find  any  other  chance; 
for,  as  a  rule,  he  was  timid  and  hesitating  with 
women.  As  he  hung,  in  his  depression,  over  the 
river,  this  man  of  forty  envisaged  —  suddenly  and 
not  so  far  away  —  old  age  and  loneliness.  A 
keen  and  peevish  resentment  took  possession  of 
him. 

Lady  Merton  and  Anderson  began  to  ascend 
a  long  flight  of  steps  leading  from  the  garden 
path  below  to  the  balcony  where  Delaine  stood. 

Elizabeth  waved  to  him  with  smiles,  and  he 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST       107 

must  perforce  watch  her  as  she  mounted  side  by 
side  with  the  fair-haired  Canadian. 

"Oh!  such  dehghtful  plans!"  she  said,  as  she 
sank  out  of  breath  into  a  seat.  "  We  have  ordered 
the  engine  for  two  o'clock.  Please  observe,  Mr. 
Arthur.  Never  again  in  this  mortal  life  shall  I 
be  able  to  'order'  an  engine  for  two  o'clock!  — 
and  one  of  these  C.  P.  R.  engines,  too,  great  splen- 
did fellows!  We  go  down  the  pass,  and  take  tea 
at  Field;  and  come  up  the  pass  again  this  even- 
ing, to  dine  and  sleep  at  Laggan.  As  we  descend, 
the  engine  goes  in  front  to  hold  us  back;  and  when 
we  ascend,  it  goes  behind  to  push  us  up;  and  I 
understand  that  the  hill  is  even  steeper"  —  she 
bent  forward,  laughing,  to  Delaine,  appealing  to 
their  common  North  Country  recollections  — 
**than  the  Shap  incline!" 

"Too  steep,  I  gather,"  said  Delaine,  "to  be 
altogether  safe."  His  tone  was  sharp.  He  stood 
with  his  back  to  the  view,  looking  from  Eliza- 
beth to  her  companion. 

Anderson  turned. 

"As  we  manage  it,  it  is  perfectly  safe!  But  it 
costs  us  too  much  to  make  it  safe.  That's  the 
reason  for  the  new  bit  of  hne." 

Elizabeth  turned  away  uncomfortably,  con- 
scious again,  as  she  had  often  been  before,  of  the 
jarring  between  the  two  men. 


io8       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

At  two  o'clock  the  car  and  the  engine  were 
ready,  and  Yerkes  received  them  at  the  station 
beaming  with  smiles.  According  to  him,  the 
privilege  allowed  them  was  all  his  doing,  and 
he  was  exceedingly  jealous  of  any  claim  of  Ander- 
son's in  the  matter. 

"You  come  to  me,  my  lady,  if  you  want  any- 
thing. Last  year  I  ran  a  Russian  princess 
through — official.  'You  take  care  of  the 
Grand  Duchess,  Yerkes,'  they  says  to  me  at  Mon- 
treal; for  they  know  there  isn't  anybody  on  the 
line  they  can  trust  with  a  lady  as  they  can  me. 
Of  course,  I  couldn't  help  her  faintin'  at  the  high 
bridges,  going  up  Rogers  Pass;  that  wasn't  none 
of  my  fault!" 

"Faint  —  at  bridges!"  said  Elizabeth  with 
scorn.  "I  never  heard  of  anybody  doing  such  a 
thing,  Yerkes." 

"Ah!  you  wait  till  you  see  *em,  my  lady,"  said 
Yerkes,  grinning. 

The  day  was  radiant,  and  even  Philip,  as  they 
started  from  Banff  station,  was  in  a  Canadian 
mood.  So  far  he  had  been  quite  cheerful  and 
good-tempered,  though  not,  to  Elizabeth's  anx- 
ious eye,  much  more  robust  yet  than  when  they 
had  left  England.  He  smoked  far  too  much,  and 
Elizabeth  wished  devoutly  that  Yerkes  would  not 
supply  him  so  liberally  with  whisky    and    cham- 


LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST       109 

pagne.  But  Philip  was  not  easily  controlled. 
The  very  decided  fancy,  however,  which  he  had 
lately  taken  for  George  Anderson  had  enabled 
Elizabeth,  in  one  or  two  instances,  to  manage  him 
more  effectively.  The  night  they  arrived  at 
Calgary,  the  lad  had  had  a  wild  desire  to  go  off 
on  a  moonlight  drive  across  the  prairies  to  a  ranch 
worked  by  an  old  Cambridge  friend  of  his.  The 
night  was  cold,  and  he  was  evidently  tired  by  the 
long  journey  from  Winnipeg.  Elizabeth  was  in 
despair,  but  could  not  move  him  at  all.  Then 
Anderson  had  intervened;  had  found  somehow 
and  somew^here  a  trapper  just  in  from  the  moun- 
tains with  a  wonderful  "catch"  of  fox  and  mar- 
ten; and  in  the  amusement  of  turning  over  a  bun- 
dle of  magnificent  furs,  and  of  buying  something 
straight  from  the  hunter  for  his  mother,  the  youth 
had  forgotten  his  waywardness.  Behind  his 
back,  Elizabeth  had  warmly  thanked  her 
lieutenant. 

"  He  only  wanted  a  little  distraction,'*  Anderson 
had  said,  with  a  shy  smile,  as  though  he  both 
liked  and  disliked  her  thanks.  And  then,  impul- 
sively, she  had  told  him  a  good  deal  about  Philip 
and  his  illness,  and  their  mother,  and  the  old 
house  in  Cumberland.  She,  of  all  persons,  to  be 
so  communicative  about  the  family  affairs  to  a 
stranger!     Was  it  that  two  days  in  a  private  car 


no       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

in  Canada  went  as  far  as  a  month's  acquaintance 
elsewhere  ? 

Another  passenger  had  been  introduced  to  Lady 
Merton  by  Anderson,  an  hour  before  the  depart- 
ure of  the  car,  and  had  made  such  a  pleasant 
impression  on  her  that  he  also  had  been  asked 
to  join  the  party,  and  had  very  gladly  consented. 
This  was  the  American,  Mr.  Val  Morton,  now  the 
official  receiver,  so  Elizabeth  understood,  of  a 
great  railway  system  in  the  middle  west  of  the 
United  States.  The  railway  had  been  handed 
over  to  him  in  a  bankrupt  condition.  His  energy 
and  probity  were  engaged  in  puUing  it  through. 
More  connections  between  it  and  the  Albertan 
railways  were  required;  and  he  was  in  Canada 
looking  round  and  negotiating.  He  was  already 
known  to  the  Chief  Justice  and  Mariette,  and 
Elizabeth  fell  quickly  in  love  with  his  white  hair, 
his  black  eyes,  his  rapier-like  slenderness  and 
keenness,  and  that  pleasant  mingling  in  him 
—  so  common  in  the  men  of  his  race  —  of  the  dry 
shrewdness  of  the  financier  with  a  kind  of  head- 
long courtesy  to  women. 

On  sped  the  car  through  the  gate  of  the  Rockies. 
The  mountains  grew  deeper,  the  snows  deeper 
against  the  blue,  the  air  more  dazzling,  the  forests 
closer,  breathing  balm  into  the  sunshine. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       iii 

Suddenly  the  car  slackened  and  stopped.  No 
sign  of  a  station.  Only  a  rustic  archway,  on 
which  was  written  "The  Great  Divide,"  and 
beneath  the  archway  two  small  brooklets  issuing, 
one  flowing  to  the  right,  the  other  to  the  left. 

They  all  left  the  car  and  stood  round  the  tiny 
streams.  They  were  on  the  watershed.  The 
water  in  the  one  streamlet  flowed  to  the  Atlantic, 
that  in  its  fellow  to  the  Pacific. 

Eternal  parable  of  small  beginnings  and  vast 
fates !  But  in  this  setting  of  untrodden  moun- 
tains, and  beside  this  railway  which  now  for  a 
few  short  years  had  been  running  its  parlour  and 
dining  cars,  its  telegraphs  and  electric  lights  and 
hotels,  a  winding  thread  of  life  and  civilisation, 
through  the  lonely  and  savage  splendours  of  snow- 
peak  and  rock,  transforming  day  by  day  the  des- 
tinies of  Canada  —  the  parable  became  a  truth, 
proved  upon  the  pulses  of  men. 

The  party  sat  down  on  the  grass  beside  the 
bright,  rippling  water,  and  Yerkes  brought  them 
coffee.  While  they  were  taking  it,  the  two  engine- 
drivers  descended  from  the  cab  of  the  engine 
and  began  to  gather  a  few  flowers  and  twigs 
from  spring  bushes  that  grew  near.  They  put 
them  together  and  off'ered  them  to  Lady  Merton. 
She,  going  to  speak  to  them,  found  that  they  were 
English  and  North  Country. 


112       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 


"  Philip !  —  Mr.  Arthur !  —  they  come  from  our 
side  of  CarHsle!" 

Philip  looked  up  with  a  careless  nod  and  smile. 
Delaine  rose  and  went  to  join  her.  A  lively 
conversation  sprang  up  between  her  and  the  two 
men.  They  were,  it  seemed,  a  stalwart  pair  of 
friends,  kinsmen  indeed,  who  generally  worked 
together,  and  were  now  entrusted  with  some 
of  the  most  important  work  on  the  most  difficult 
sections  of  the  line.  But  they  were  not  going  to 
spend  all  their  days  on  the  line  —  not  they! 
Like  everybody  in  the  West,  they  had  their  eyes 
on  the  land.  Upon  a  particular  district  of  it, 
moreover,  in  Northern  Alberta,  not  yet  surveyed 
or  settled.  But  they  were  watching  it,  and  as 
soon  as  the  "steel  gang"  of  a  projected  railway 
came  within  measurable  distance  they  meant 
to  claim  their  sections  and  work  their  land 
together. 

When  the  conversation  came  to  an  end  and 
Elizabeth,  who  with  her  companions  had  been 
strolling  along  the  line  a  little  in  front  of  the  train, 
turned  back  towards  her  party,  Delaine  looked 
down  upon  her,  at  once  anxious  to  strike  the  right 
note,  and  moodily  despondent  of  doing  it. 

"Evidently,  two  very  good  fellows!"  he  said 
in  his  rich,  ponderous  voice.  "You  gave  them  a 
great  pleasure  by  going  to  talk  to  them." 


LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST       113 

"I?"  cried  Elizabeth.  "They  are  a  perfect 
pair  of  gentlemen!  —  and  it  is  very  kind  of  them 
to  drive  us!" 

Delaine  laughed  uneasily, 

"The  gradations  here  are  bewildering  —  or 
rather  the  absence  of  gradations." 

"One  gets  down  to  the  real  thing,"  said  Eliz- 
abeth, rather  hotly. 

Delaine  laughed  again,  with  a  touch  of  bitter- 
ness, 

"The  real  thing?  What  kind  of  reality? 
There  are  all  sorts," 

Elizabeth  was  suddenly  conscious  of  a  sore- 
ness in  his  tone.     She  tried  to  walk  warily. 

"I  was  only  thinking,"  she  protested,  "of 
the  chances  a  man  gets  in  this  country  of  show- 
ing what  is  in  him." 

"  Remember,  too,"  said  Delaine,  with  spirit, 
"the  chances  that  he  misses!" 

"The  chances  that  belong  only  to  the  old 
countries?  I  am  rather  bored  with  them!"  said 
Elizabeth  flippantly 

Delaine  forced  a  smile. 

"  Poor  Old  World !  I  wonder  if  you  will  ever 
be  fair  to  it  again,  or  —  or  to  the  people  bound 
up  with  it!" 

She  looked  at  him,  a  little  discomposed,  and  said, 
smiling: 


114       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

"  Wait  till  you  meet  me  next  in  Rome  !'* 

"Shall  I  ever  meet  you  again  in  Rome?'* 
he  replied,  under  his  breath,  as  though  involun- 
tarily. 

As  he  spoke  he  made  a  determined  pause,  a 
stone's  throw  from  the  rippling  stream  that 
marks  the  watershed;  and  Elizabeth  must  needs 
pause  with  him.  Beyond  the  stream,  Philip  sat 
lounging  among  rugs  and  cushions  brought  from 
the  car,  Anderson  and  the  American  beside  him. 
Anderson's  fair,  uncovered  head  and  broad  shoul- 
ders were  strongly  thrown  out  against  the  glisten- 
ing snows  of  the  background.  Upon  the  three 
typical  figures  —  the  frail  English  boy  —  the 
Canadian  —  the  spare  New  Yorker  —  there  shone 
an  indescribable  brilliance  of  light.  The  energy 
of  the  mountain  sunshine  and  the  mountain  air 
seemed  to  throb  and  quiver  through  the  persons 
talking  —  through  Anderson's  face,  and  his  eyes 
fixed  upon  Elizabeth  —  through  the  sunlit  water 
—  the  sparkling  grasses  —  the  shimmering  spec- 
tacle of  mountain  and  summer  cloud  that  begirt 
them. 

"  Dear  Mr.  Arthur,  of  course  we  shall  meet 
again  in  Rome!"  said  Elizabeth,  rosy,  and  not 
knowing  in  truth  what  to  say.  "This  place  has 
turned  my  head  a  little!'*  —  she  looked  round  her, 
raising  her  hand  to  the  spectacle  as  though  in  pretty 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       115 

appeal  to  him  to  share  her  own  exhilaration  — 
"  but  it  will  be  all  over  so  soon  —  and  you  know 
I  don't  forget  old  friends  — ■  or  old  pleasures." 

Her  voice  wavered  a  little.  He  looked  at  her, 
with  parted  lips,  and  a  rather  hostile,  heated 
expression;  then  drew  back,  alarmed  at  his  own 
temerity. 

"Of  course  I  know  it!  You  must  forgive  a 
bookworm  his  grumble.  Shall  I  help  you  over 
the  stream  ?" 

But  she  stepped  across  the  tiny  streamlet  with- 
out giving  him  her  hand. 

As  they  later  rejoined  the  party,  Morton, 
the  Chief  Justice,  and  Mariette  returned  from  a 
saunter  in  the  course  of  which  they  too  had  been 
chatting  to  the  engine-drivers. 

"I  know  the  part  of  the  country  those  men 
want,"  the  American  was  saying.  "I  was  all 
over  Alberta  last  fall  —  part  of  it  in  a  motor  car. 
We  jumped  about  those  stubble-fields  in  a  way  to 
make  a  leopard  jealous!  Every  bone  in  my  body 
was  sore  for  weeks  afterwards.  But  it  was  worth 
while.  That's  a  country!"  —  he  threw  up  his 
hands.  "  I  was  at  Edmonton  on  the  day  when  the 
last  Government  lands,  the  odd  numbers,  were 
thrown  open.  I  saw  the  siege  of  the  land  offices, 
the  rush  of  the  new  population.  Ah,  well,  of 
course,  we're  used  to  such  scenes  in  the  States. 


ii6       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

There's  a  great  trek  going  on  now  in  our  own 
Southwest.  But  when  that's  over,  our  free  land 
is  done.  Canada  will  have  the  handling  of  the 
last  batch  on  this  planet." 

"If  Canada  by  that  time  is  not  America,"  said 
Mariette,  drily. 

The  American  digested  the  remark. 

"Well,"  he  said,  at  last,  with  a  smile,  "if  I 
were  a  Canadian,  perhaps  I  should  be  a  bit 
nervous." 

Thereupon,  Mariette  with  great  animation 
developed  his  theme  of  the  "American  invasion." 
Winnipeg  was  one  danger  spot,  British  Columbia 
another.  The  "  peaceful  penetration,"  both  of 
men  and  capital,  was  going  on  so  rapidly  that  a 
movement  for  annexation,  were  it  once  started  in 
certain  districts  of  Canada,  might  be  irresistible. 
The  harsh  and  powerful  face  of  the  speaker 
became  transfigured;  one  divined  in  him  some 
hidden  motive  which  was  driving  him  to  contest 
and  belittle  the  main  currents  and  sympathies 
about  him.  He  spoke  as  a  prophet,  but  the 
faith  which  envenomed  the  prophecy  lay  far  out 
of  sight. 

Anderson  took  it  quietly.  The  Chief  Justice 
smiled. 

"It  might  have  been,"  he  said,  "it  might  have 
been!     This  railroad  has  made  the    difference." 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       117 

He  stretched  out  his  hand  towards  the  line  and  the 
pass.  "Twenty  years  ago,  I  came  over  this 
ground  with  the  first  party  that  ever  pushed 
through  Rogers  Pass  and  down  the  Illecillewaet 
Valley  to  the  Pacific.  We  camped  just  about  here 
for  the  night.  And  in  the  evening  I  v/as  sitting 
by  myself  on  the  slopes  of  that  mountain  opposite" 
—  he  raised  his  hand  —  ''looking  at  the  railway 
camps  below  me,  and  the  first  rough  line  that 
had  been  cut  through  the  forests.  And  I  thought 
of  the  day  when  the  trains  would  be  going  back- 
wards and  forwards,  and  these  nameless  valleys 
and  peaks  would  become  the  playground  of 
Canada  and  America.  But  what  I  didn't  see 
was  the  shade  of  England  looking  on!  —  England, 
whose  greater  destiny  was  being  decided  by  those 
gangs  of  workmen  below  me,  and  the  thousands 
of  workmen  behind  me,  busy  night  and  day  in 
bridging  the  gap  between  east  and  w^est.  Traffic 
from  north  and  south"  —  he  turned  towards  the 
American  —  "that  meant,  for  your  Northwest, 
fusion  w^ith  our  Northwest;  traffic  from  east  to 
west  —  that  meant  England,  and  the  English 
Sisterhood  of  States!  And  that,  for  the  moment, 
I  didn't  see." 

"Shall  I  quote  you  something  I  found  in  an 
Edmonton  paper  the  other  day  ?"  said  Anderson, 
raising  his  head  from  where  he  lay,  looking  down 


ii8       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

into  the  grass.     And  with  his  smiling,  intent  gaze 
fixed  on  the  American,  he  recited: 

Land  of  the  sweeping  eagle,  your  goal  is  not  our  goal  I 

For  the  ages  have  taught  that  the  North  and  the  South  breed 

difference  of  soul. 
We  toiled  for  years  in  the  snow  and  the  night,  because  we 

believed  in  the  spring, 
And  the  mother  who  cheered   us  first,   shall  be  first  at  the 

banquetting  ! 
The  grey  old  mother,  the  dear  old  mother,  who  taught  us  the 

note  we  sing  ! 

The  American  laughed. 

"A  bit  raw,  like  some  of  your  prairie  towns; 
but  it  hits  the  nail.  I  dare  say  we  have  missed 
our  bargain.  What  matter!  Our  own  chunk 
is  as  big  as  we  can  chew." 

There  was  a  moment's  silence.  Elizabeth's 
eyes  were  shining;  even  Philip  sat  open-mouthed 
and  dumb,  staring  at  Anderson. 

In  the  background  Delaine  waited,  grudgingly 
expectant,  for  the  turn  of  Elizabeth's  head,  and 
the  spark  of  consciousness  passing  between  the 
two  faces  which  he  had  learnt  to  watch.  It  came 
—  a  flash  of  some  high  sympathy  —  involuntary, 
lasting  but  a  moment.     Then  Mariette  threw  out: 

"And  in  the  end,  what  are  you  going  to  make 
of  it?  A  replica  of  Europe,  or  America?  —  a 
money-grubbing  civilisation  with  no  faith  but  the 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST       119 

dollar  ?  If  so,  we  shall  have  had  the  great  chance 
of  history  —  and  lost  it!" 

"We  shan't  lose  it,"  said  Anderson,  "unless 
the  gods  mock  us." 

"Why  not  ?"  said  Mariette  sombrely.  "Nations 
have  gone  mad  before  now^." 

"Ah!  —  prophesy,  prophesy!"  said  the  Chief 
Justice  sadly.  "All  very  well  for  you  young  men, 
but  for  us,  who  are  passing  away!  Here  we  are 
at  the  birth.  Shall  we  never,  in  any  state  of 
being,  know  the  end  .?  I  have  never  felt  so  bitterly 
as  I  do  now  the  limitations  of  our  knowledge  and 
our  life." 

No  one  answered  him.  But  Elizabeth  looking 
up  saw  the  aspect  of  Mariette  —  the  aspect  of  a 
thinker  and  a  mystic  —  slowly  relax.  Its  harsh- 
ness became  serenity,  its  bitterness  peace.  And 
with  her  quick  feeling  she  guessed  that  the  lament 
of  the  Chief  Justice  had  only  awakened  in  the 
religious  mind  the  typical  religious  cry, "  Thouy 
Lord,  art  the  Eternal,  and  Thy  years  shall  not 
fail." 

At  Field,  where  a  most  friendly  inn  shelters 
under  the  great  shoulders  of  Mount  Stephen, 
they  left  the  car  a  while,  took  tea  in  the  hotel,  and 
wandered  through  the  woods  below  it.  All  the 
afternoon,  Elizabeth  had  shown  a  most  delicate 


120       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

and  friendly  consideration  for  Delaine.  She  had 
turned  the  conversation  often  in  his  direction  and 
on  his  subjects,  had  placed  him  by  her  side  at  tea, 
and  in  general  had  more  than  done  her  duty  by 
him.  To  no  purpose.  Delaine  saw  himself  as 
the  condemned  man  to  whom  indulo-ences  are 
granted  before  execution.  She  would  probably 
have  done  none  of  these  things  if  there  had  been 
any  real  chance  for  him. 

But  in  the  walk  after  tea,  Anderson  and  Lady 
Merton  drifted  together.  There  had  been  so  far 
a  curious  effort  on  both  their  parts  to  avoid  each 
other's  company.  But  now  the  Chief  Justice 
and  Delaine  had  foregathered;  Philip  was  loung- 
ing and  smoking  on  the  balcony  of  the  hotel  with 
a  visitor  there,  an  old  Etonian  fishing  and  climb- 
ing in  the  Rockies  for  health,  whom  they  had 
chanced  upon  at  tea.  Mariette,  after  one  glance 
at  the  company,  especially  at  Elizabeth  and 
Anderson,  had  turned  aside  into  the  woods  by 
himself. 

They  crossed  the  river  and  strolled  up  the  road 
to  Emerald  Lake.  Over  the  superb  valley  to 
their  left  hung  the  great  snowy  mass,  glistening 
and  sunlit,  of  Mount  Stephen;  far  to  the  West  the 
jagged  peaks  of  the  Van  Home  range  shot  up  into 
the  golden  air;  on  the  flat  beside  the  river  vivid 
patches  of  some  crimson  flower,  new  to  Elizabeth's 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       121 

eyes,  caught  the  sloping  light;  and  the  voice  of  a 
swollen  river  pursued  them. 

They  began  to  talk,  this  time  of  England. 
Anderson  asked  many  questions  as  to  English 
politics  and  personalities.  And  she,  to  please  him, 
chattered  of  great  people  and  events,  of  scenes  and 
leaders  in  Parliament,  of  diplomats  and  royalties; 
all  the  gossip  of  the  moment,  in  fact,  fluttering 
round  the  principal  figures  of  English  and  Euro- 
pean politics.  It  v^as  the  talk  most  natural  to  her; 
the  talk  of  the  w^orld  she  knew  best;  and  as  Eliza- 
beth was  full  of  shrewdness  and  natural  salt, 
without  a  trace  of  malice,  no  more  at  least  than  a 
woman  should  have  —  to  borrow  the  saying  about 
Wilkes  and  his  squint  —  her  chatter  was  generally 
in  request,  and  she  knew  it. 

But  Anderson,  though  he  had  led  up  to  it,  did 
not  apparently  enjoy  it;  on  the  contrary,  she  felt 
him  gradually  withdrawing  and  cooling,  becom- 
ing a  little  dry  and  caustic,  even  satirical,  as  on 
the  first  afternoon  of  their  acquaintance.  So 
that  after  a  while  her  gossip  flagged;  since  the 
game  wants  two  to  play  it.  Then  Anderson 
walked  on  with  a  furrowed  brow,  and  raised 
colour;  and  she  could  not  imagine  what  had  been 
done  or  said  to  annoy  him. 

She  could  only  try  to  lead  him  back  to  Canada. 
But  she  got  little  or  no  response. 


122      LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

"Our  politics  must  seem  to  you  splashes  in  a 
water-butt,"  he  said  impatiently,  "after  London 
and  Europe." 

"A  pretty  big  water-butt!'* 

"Size  makes  no  difference."  Elizabeth's  lips 
twitched  as  she  remembered  Arthur  Delaine's 
similar  protests;  but  she  kept  her  countenance, 
and  merely  worked  the  harder  to  pull  her  com- 
panion out  of  this  odd  pit  of  ill-humour  into  which 
he  had  fallen.  And  in  the  end  she  succeeded; 
he  repented,  and  let  her  manage  him  as  she 
would.  And  whether  it  was  the  influence  of 
this  hidden  action  and  reaction  between  their 
minds,  or  of  the  perfumed  June  day  breathing 
on  them  from  the  pines,  or  of  the  giant  splendour 
of  Mount  Burgess,  rising  sheer  in  front  of  them 
out  of  the  dark  avenue  of  the  forest,  cannot  be  told; 
but,  at  least,  they  became  more  intimate  than  they 
had  yet  been,  more  deeply  interesting  each  to 
the  other.  In  his  thoughts  and  ideals  she  found 
increasing  fascination;  her  curiosity,  her  friendly 
and  womanly  curiosity,  grew  with  satisfaction. 
His  view  of  life  was  often  harsh  or  melancholy; 
but  there  was  never  a  false  nor  a  mean  note. 

Yet  before  the  walk  was  done  he  had  startled 
her.  As  they  turned  back  towards  Field,  and  were 
in  the  shadows  of  the  pines,  he  said,  with  abrupt 
decision: 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       123 

"Will  you   forgive   me   if  I   say   something?" 

She  looked  up  surprised. 

"Don't  let  your  brother  drink  so  much  cham- 
pagne! 

The  colour  rushed  into  Elizabeth's  face.  She 
drew  herself  up,  conscious  of  sharp  pain,  but  also 
of  anger.  A  stranger,  who  had  not  yet  known 
them  ten  days!  But  she  met  an  expression  on 
his  face,  timid  and  yet  passionately  resolved, 
which  arrested  her. 

"I  really  don't  know  what  you  mean,  Mr. 
Anderson!"  she  said  proudly. 

"  I  thought  I  had  seen  you  anxious.  I  should 
be  anxious  if  I  were  you,"  he  went  on  hurriedly. 
"He  has  been  ill,  and  is  not  quite  master  of 
himself.  That  is  always  the  critical  moment. 
He  is  a  charming  fellow  —  you  must  be  devoted 
to  him.  For  God's  sake,  don't  let  him  ruin  him- 
self body  and  soul!" 

Elizabeth  was  dumbfounded.  The  tears  rushed 
into  her  eyes,  her  voice  choked  in  her  throat. 
She  must,  she  would  defend  her  brother.  Then 
she  thought  of  the  dinner  of  the  night  before,  and 
the  night  before  that  —  of  the  wine  bill  at  Win- 
nipeg and  Toronto.  Her  colour  faded  away; 
her  heart  sank;  but  it  still  seemed  to  her  an  outrage 
that  he  should  have  dared  to  speak  of  it.  He 
spoke,  however,  before  she  could. 


124      LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

"Forgive  me,"  he  said,  recovering  his  self- 
control.  **I  know  it  must  seem  mere  insolence 
on  my  part.  But  I  can't  help  it  —  I  can't  look 
on  at  such  a  thing,  silently.  May  I  explain  ? 
Please  permit  me!  I  told  you" — his  voice 
changed  —  "my  mother  and  sisters  had  been 
burnt  to  death.  I  adored  my  mother.  She  was 
everything  to  me.  She  brought  us  up  with 
infinite  courage,  though  she  was  a  very  frail 
woman.  In  those  days  a  farm  in  Manitoba  was 
a  much  harder  struggle  than  it  is  now.  Yet  she 
never  complained;  she  was  always  cheerful; 
always  at  work.  But  —  my  father  drank!  It 
came  upon  him  as  a  young  man  —  after  an  illness. 
It  got  worse  as  he  grew  older.  Every  bit  of 
prosperity  that  came  to  us,  he  drank  away;  he 
would  have  ruined  us  again  and  again,  but  for 
my  mother.  And  at  last  he  murdered  her  — 
her  and  my  poor  sisters!" 

Elizabeth  made  a  sound  of  horror. 

"  Oh,  there  was  no  intention  to  murder,"  said 
Anderson  bitterly.  "He  merely  sat  up  drinking 
one  winter  night  with  a  couple  of  whisky  bottles 
beside  him.  Then  in  the  morning  he  was  awak- 
ened by  the  cold;  the  fire  had  gone  out.  He 
stumbled  out  to  get  the  can  of  coal-oil  from  the 
stable,  still  dazed  with  drink,  brought  it  in  and 
poured  some  on  the  wood.     Some  more  wood  was 


LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST       125 

wanted.  He  went  out  to  fetch  It,  leaving  his 
candle  alight,  a  broken  end  in  a  rickety  candlestick, 
on  the  floor  beside  the  coal-oil.  When  he  got  to 
the  stable  it  was  warm  and  comfortable;  he 
forgot  what  he  had  come  for,  fell  down  on  a  bundle 
of  straw,  and  went  into  a  dead  sleep.  The  candle 
must  have  fallen  over  into  the  oil,  the  oil  exploded, 
and  in  a  few  seconds  the  wooden  house  was  in 
flames.  By  the  time  I  came  rushing  back  from  the 
slough  where  I  had  been  breaking  the  ice  for 
water,  the  roof  had  already  fallen  in.  My  poor 
mother  and  two  of  the  children  had  evidently 
tried  to  escape  by  the  stairway  and  had  perished 
there;  the  two  others  were  burnt  in  their 
beds." 

"And  your  father?"  murmured  Elizabeth, 
unable  to  take  her  eyes  from  the  speaker. 

*'I  woke  him  in  the  stable,  and  told  him  what 
had  happened.  Bit  by  bit  I  got  out  of  him  what 
he'd  done.  And  then  I  said  to  him,  *  Now  choose !  — 
either  you  go,  or  we.  After  the  funeral,  the  boys 
and  I  have  done  with  you.  You  can't  force  us 
to  go  on  living  with  you.  We  will  kill  ourselves 
first.  Either  you  stay  here,  and  we  go  into  Winni- 
peg; or  you  can  sell  the  stock,  take  the  money, 
and  go.  We'll  work  the  farm.*  He  swore  at 
me,  but  I  told  him  he'd  find  we'd  made  up  our 
minds.     And  a  week  later,  he  disappeared.     He 


126       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

had  sold  the  stock,  and  left  us  the  burnt  walls  and 
the  land." 

"And  you've  never  seen  him  since?'* 

"Never." 

"You  believe  him  dead.?" 

"I  know  that  he  died — in  the  first  Yukon 
rush  of  ten  years  ago.  I  tracked  him  there, 
shortly  afterwards.  He  was  probably  killed  in 
a  scuffle  with  some  miners  as  drunken  as  himself." 

There  was  a  silence,  which  he  broke  very 
humbly. 

"  Do  you  forgive  me  ?  I  know  I  am  not  sane 
on  this  point.     I  believe  I  have  spoilt  your  day." 

She  looked  up,  her  eyes  swimming  in  tears, 
and  held  out  her  hand. 

"It's  nothing,  you  know,"  she  said,  trying  to 
smile  —  "in  our  case.     Philip  is  such  a  baby." 

"I  know;  but  look  after  him!"  he  said  earnestly, 
as  he  grasped  it. 

The  trees  thinned,  and  voices  approached. 
They  emerged  from  the  forest,  and  found  them- 
selves hailed  by  the  Chief  Justice. 

The  journey  up  the  pass  was  even  more  wonder- 
ful than  the  journey  down.  Sunset  lights  lay  on  the 
forests,  on  the  glorious  lonely  mountains,  and  on 
the  valley  of  the  Yoho,  roadless  and  houseless 
now,  but  soon  to  be  as  famous  through  the  world 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST       127 

as  Grindelwald  or  Chamounix.  They  dismounted 
and  explored  the  great  camps  of  workmen  in  the 
pass;  they  watched  the  boihng  of  the  stream, 
which  had  carved  the  path  of  the  railway;  they 
gathered  white  dogwood,  and  yellow  snow-Hlies, 
and  red  painter's-brush. 

Elizabeth  and  Anderson  hardly  spoke  to  each 
other.  She  talked  a  great  deal  with  Delaine, 
and  Mariette  held  a  somewhat  acid  dispute 
with  her  on  modern  French  books  —  Loti, 
Anatole  France,  Zola  —  authors  whom  his  soul 
loathed. 

But  the  day  had  forged  a  lasting  bond  between 
Anderson  and  Elizabeth,  and  they  knew  it. 

The  night  rose  clear  and  cold,  with  stars  shining 
on  the  snow.  Delaine,  who  with  Anderson  had 
found  quarters  in  one  of  Laggan's  handful  of 
houses,  went  out  to  stroll  and  smoke  alone,  before 
turning  into  bed.  He  walked  along  the  railway 
line  towards  Banff,  in  bitterness  of  soul,  debating 
with  himself  whether  he  could  possibly  leave  the 
party  at  once. 

When  he  was  well  out  of  sig-ht  of  the  station 
and  the  houses,  he  became  aware  of  a  man  per- 
sistently following  him,  and  not  without  a  hasty 
grip  on  the  stout  stick  he  carried,  he  turned  at 
last  to  confront  him. 


128       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

"What  do  you  want  with  me?  You  seem  to 
be  following  me." 

"Are  you  Mr.  Arthur  Delaine.'"'  said  a  thick 
voice. 

"That  is  my  name.     What  do  you  want  ?" 

"And  you  be  lodging  to-night  in  the  same  house 
with  Mr.  George  Anderson  .?" 

"I  am.     What's  that  to  you  .?" 

"Well,  I  want  twenty  minutes'  talk  with  you,'* 
said  the  voice,  after  a  pause.  The  accent  was 
Scotch.  In  the  darkness  Delaine  dimly  perceived 
an  old  and  bent  man  standing  before  him,  who 
seemed  to  sway  and  totter  as  he  leant  upon  his  stick. 

"I  cannot  imagine,  sir,  why  you  should  want 
anything  of  the  kind."  And  he  turned  to  pursue 
his  walk.  The  old  man  kept  up  with  him,  and 
presently  said  something  which  brought  Delaine 
to  a  sudden  stop  of  astonishment.  He  stood 
there  listening  for  a  few  minutes,  transfixed,  and 
finally,  turning  round,  he  allowed  his  strange 
companion  to  walk  slowly  beside  him  back  to 
Laggan. 


CHAPTER  VII 

Oh  !  the  freshness  of  the  morning  on  Lake  Louise ! 
It  was  barely  eight  o'clock,  yet  EHzabeth  Merton 
had  already  taken  her  coffee  on  the  hotel  verandah, 
and  was  out  wandering  by  herself.  The  hotel, 
which  is  nearly  six  thousand  feet  above  the  sea, 
had  only  just  been  opened  for  its  summer  guests, 
and  Elizabeth  and  her  party  were  its  first  inmates, 
Anderson  indeed  had  arranged  their  coming, 
and  was  to  have  brought  them  hither  himself. 
But  on  the  night  of  the  party's  return  to  Laggan 
he  had  been  hastily  summoned  by  telegraph  to 
a  consultation  of  engineers  on  a  difficult  matter 
of  railway  grading  in  the  Kootenay  district. 
Delaine,  knocking  at  his  door  in  the  morning, 
had  found  him  flown.  A  note  for  Lady  Merton 
explained  his  flight,  gave  all  directions  for  the 
drive  to  Lake  Louise,  and  expressed  his  hope  to 
be  with  them  again  as  expeditiously  as  possible. 
Three  days  had  now  elapsed  since  he  had  left 
them.  Delaine,  rather  to  Elizabeth's  astonish- 
ment, had  once  or  twice  inquired  when  he  might 
be  expected  to  return. 

129 


130       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

Elizabeth  found  a  little  path  by  the  lake  shore, 
and  pursued  it  a  short  way;  but  presently  the 
splendour  and  the  beauty  overpowered  her;  her  feet 
paused  of  themselves.  She  sat  down  on  a  jutting 
promontory  of  rock,  and  lost  herself  in  the  forms 
and  hues  of  the  morning.  In  front  of  her  rose  a 
wall  of  glacier  sheer  out  of  the  water  and  thousands 
of  i^eet  above  the  lake,  into  the  clear  brilliance 
of  the  sky.  On  either  side  of  its  dazzling  white- 
ness, mountains  of  rose-coloured  rock,  fledged 
with  pine,  fell  steeply  to  the  water's  edge,  enclosing 
and  holding  up  the  glacier;  and  vast  rock  pin- 
nacles of  a  paler  rose,  melting  into  gold,  broke, 
here  and  there,  the  gleaming  splendour  of  the 
ice.  The  sun,  just  topping  the  great  basin, 
kindled  the  ice  surfaces,  and  all  the  glistening 
pinks  and  yellows,  the  pale  purples  and  blood- 
crimsons  of  the  rocks,  to  flame  and  splendour; 
while  the  shadows  of  the  coolest  azure  still  held 
the  hollows  and  caves  of  the  glacier.  Deep  in 
the  motionless  lake,  the  shining  snows  repeated 
themselves,  so  also  the  rose-red  rocks,  the  blue 
shadows,  the  dark  buttressing  crags  with  their 
pines.  Height  beyond  height,  glory  beyond  glory 
—  from  the  reality  above,  the  eye  descended  to 
its  lovelier  image  below,  which  lay  there,  enchanted 
and  insubstantial,  Nature's  dream  of  itself. 

The  sky  was  pure  light;   the  air  pure  fragrance. 


LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST       131 

Heavy  dews  dripped  from  the  pines  and  the  moss, 
and  sparkled  in  the  sun.  Beside  Ehzabeth, 
under  a  group  of  pines,  lay  a  bed  of  snow-lilies, 
their  golden  heads  dew-drenched,  waiting  for  the 
touch  of  the  morning,  waiting,  too  —  so  she 
thought  —  for  that  Canadian  poet  who  will  yet 
place  them  in  English  verse  beside  the  daffodils 
of  Westmoreland. 

She  could  hardly  breathe  for  delight.  The  Alps, 
whether  in  their  Swiss  or  Italian  aspects,  were 
dear  and  familiar  to  her.  She  climbed  nimbly 
and  well;  and  her  senses  knew  the  magic  of 
high  places.  But  never  surely  had  even  travelled 
eyes  beheld  a  nobler  fantasy  of  Nature  than  that 
composed  by  these  snows  and  forests  of  Lake 
Louise;  such  rocks  of  opal  and  pearl;  such  dark 
gradations  of  splendour  in  calm  water;  such 
balanced  intricacy  and  harmony  in  the  building 
of  this  ice-palace  that  reared  its  majesty  above 
the  lake;  such  a  beauty  of  subordinate  and  con- 
verging outline  in  the  supporting  mountains  on 
either  hand;  as  though  the  Earth  Spirit  had 
lingered  on  his  work,  finishing  and  caressing  it 
in  conscious  joy. 

And  in  Elizabeth's  heart,  too,  there  was  a  fresh- 
ness of  spring;  an  overflow  of  something  elemental 
and  irresistible. 

Yet,  strangely  enough,  it  was  at  that  moment 


132       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

expressing  itself  in  regret  and  compunction. 
Since  the  dawn,  that  morning,  she  had  been 
unable  to  sleep.  The  strong  light,  the  pricking 
air,  had  kept  her  wakeful;  and  she  had  been 
employing  her  time  in  writing  to  her  mother,  who 
was  also  her  friend. 

" .  .  .  Dear  little  mother  —  You  will  say 
I  have  been  unkind  —  I  say  it  to  myself.  But 
would  it  really  have  been  fairer  if  I  had  forbidden 
him  to  join  us  ?  There  was  just  a  chance  —  it 
seems  ridiculous  now  —  but  there  was  —  I  con- 
fess it!  And  by  my  letter  from  Toronto  — 
though  really  my  little  note  might  have  been 
written  to  anybody  —  I  as  good  as  said  so  to  him, 
*  Come  and  throw  the  dice  and  —  let  us  see  what 
falls  out!'  Practically,  that  is  what  it  amounted 
to  —  I  admit  it  in  sackcloth  and  ashes.  Well! 
—  we  have  thrown  the  dice  —  and  it  won't  do! 
No,  it  won't,  it  won't  do!  And  it  is  somehow  all 
my  fault  —  which  is  abominable.  But  I  see  now, 
what  I  never  saw  at  home  or  in  Italy,  that  he  is 
a  thousand  years  older  than  I  —  that  I  should 
weary  and  jar  upon  him  at  every  turn,  were  I  to 
marry  him.  Also  I  have  discovered  —  out  here  — 
I  believe,  darling, you  have  known  it  all  along!  — 
that  there  is  at  the  very  root  of  me  a  kind  of 
savage  —  a  creature  that  hates  fish-knives  and 
finger-glasses  and  dressing  for  dinner  —  the  things 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       133 

I  have  done  all  my  life,  and  Arthur  Delaine  will 
go  on  doing  all  his.  Also  that  I  never  want  to 
see  a  museum  again  —  at  least,  not  for  a  long 
time;  and  that  I  don't  care  twopence  whether 
Herculaneum  is  excavated  or  not! 

**  Isn't  it  shocking  ?  I  can't  explain  myself; 
and  poor  Mr.  Arthur  evidently  can't  make  head 
or  tail  of  me,  and  thinks  me  a  little  mad.  So  I 
am,  in  a  sense.  I  am  suffering  from  a  new  kind 
of  folie  des  grandeurs.  The  world  has  suddenly 
grown  so  big;  everything  in  the  human  story  — 
all  its  simple  fundamental  things  at  least  —  is 
writ  so  large  here.  Hope  and  ambition  —  love 
and  courage  —  the  man  wrestling  with  the  earth  — 
the  woman  who  bears  and  brings  up  children 
—  it  is  as  though  I  had  never  felt,  never  seen 
them  before.  They  rise  out  of  the  dust  and  mist 
of  our  modern  life  —  great  shapes  warm  from 
the  breast  of  Nature  —  and  I  hold  my  breath. 
Behind  them,  for  landscape,  all  the  dumb  age- 
long past  of  these  plains  and  mountains;  and  in 
front,  the  future  on  the  loom,  and  the  young 
radiant  nation,  shuttle  in  hand,  moving  to  and 
fro  at  her  unfolding  task! 

"  How  unfair  to  Mr.  Arthur  that  this  queer 
intoxication  of  mine  should  have  altered  him  so 
in  my  foolish  eyes  —  as  though  one  had  scrubbed 
all  the  golden  varnish  from  an  old  picture,  and 


134       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

left  it  crude  and  charmless.  It  is  not  his  fault  — 
it  is  mine.  In  Europe  we  loved  the  same  things; 
his  pleasure  kindled  mine.  But  here  he  enjoys 
nothing  that  I  enjoy;  he  is  longing  for  a  tiresome 
day  to  end,  when  my  heart  is  just  singing  for 
delight.  For  it  is  not  only  Canada  in  the  large 
that  holds  me,  but  all  its  dear,  human,  dusty, 
incoherent  detail  —  all  its  clatter  of  new  towns 
and  spreading  farms  —  of  pushing  railways  and 
young  parHaments  —  of  roadmaking  and  bridge- 
making  —  of  saw-mills  and  lumber  camps  — 
detail  so  different  from  anything  I  have  ever  dis- 
cussed with  Arthur  Delaine  before.  Some  of  it 
is  ugly,  I  know  —  I  don't  care!  It  is  like  a  Rem- 
brandt ugliness  —  that  only  helps  and  ministers 
to  a  stronger  beauty,  the  beauty  of  prairie  and 
sky,  and  the  beauty  of  the  human  battle,  the 
battle  of  blood  and  brain,  with  the  earth  and  her 
forces. 

^^^ Enter  these  enchanted  woodsy  ye  who  dare!* 
"There  is  a  man  here  —  a  Mr.  George  Ander- 
son, of  whom  I  told  you  something  in  my  last 
letter  —  who  seems  to  embody  the  very  life  of 
this  country,  to  be  the  prairie,  and  the  railway,  and 
the  forest  —  their  very  spirit  and  avatar.  Person- 
ally, he  is  often  sad;  his  own  life  has  been  hard; 
and  yet  the  heart  of  him  is  all  hope  and  courage, 
all  delight  too  in  the  daily  planning  and  wrestling. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       135 

the  contrivance  and  the  cleverness,  the  rifling 
and  outwitting  of  Nature  —  that  makes  a  Cana- 
dian —  at  any  rate  a  Western  Canadian.  1 
suppose  he  doesn't  know  anything  about  art. 
Mr.  Arthur  seems  to  have  nothing  in  common 
with  him;  but  there  is  in  him  that  rush  and  energy 
of  Hfe,  from  which,  surely,  art  and  poetry  spring, 
when  the  time  is  ripe. 

"Don't  of  course  imagine  anything  absurd! 
He  is  just  a  young  Scotch  engineer,  who  seems 
to  have  made  some  money  as  people  do  make 
money  here  —  quickly  and  honestly  —  and  is 
shortly  going  into  Parliament.  They  say  that  he 
is  sure  to  be  a  great  man.  To  us  —  to  Philip 
and  me,  he  has  been  extremely  kind.  I  only 
meant  that  he  seems  to  be  in  place  here  —  or 
anywhere,  indeed,  where  the  world  is  moving; 
while  Mr.  Arthur,  in  Canada,  is  a  walking  ana- 
chronism.    He  is  out  of  perspective;  he  doesn't  fit. 

"You  will  say,  that  if  I  married  him,  it  would 
not  be  to  live  in  Canada,  and  once  at  home  again, 
the  old  estimates  and  *  values'  would  reassert 
themselves.  But  in  a  sense  —  don't  be  alarmed  — 
I  shall  always  live  in  Canada.  Or,  rather,  I 
shall  never  be  quite  the  same  again;  and  Mr. 
Arthur  would  find  me  a  restless,  impracticable, 
discontented  woman. 

"  Would  it  not  really  be  kinder  if  I  suggested 


136       LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST 

to  him  to  go  home  by  California,  while  we  come 
back  again  through  the  Rockies  ?  Don't  you 
think  it  would  ?  I  feel  that  I  have  begun  to  get 
on  his  nerves  —  as  he  on  mine.  If  you  were 
only  here!  But,  I  assure  you,  he  doesn't  look 
miserable;  and  I  think  he  will  bear  up  very  well. 
And  if  it  will  be  any  comfort  to  you  to  be  told 
that  I  know  what  is  meant  by  the  gnawing  of  the 
little  worm,  Compunction,  then  be  comforted, 
dearest;  for  it  gnaws  horribly,  and  out  of  all 
proportion  —  I  vow  —  to  my  crimes. 

"  Philip  is  better  on  the  whole,  and  has  taken 
an  enormous  fancy  to  Mr.  Anderson.  But,  as 
I  have  told  you  all  along,  he  is  not  so  much  better 
as  you  and  I  hoped  he  would  be.  I  take  every 
care  of  him  that  I  can,  but  you  know  that  he  is 
not  wax,  when  it  comes  to  managing.  However, 
Mr.  Anderson  has  been  a  great  help." 

Recollections  of  this  letter,  and  other  thoughts 
besides,  coming  from  much  deeper  strata  of  the 
mind  than  she  had  been  willing  to  reveal  to  her 
mother,  kept  slipping  at  intervals  through  Eliza- 
beth's consciousness,  as  she  sat  beside  the  lake. 

A  step  beside  her  startled  her,  and  she  looked 
up  to  see  Delaine  approaching. 

"Out  already,  Mr.  Arthur!  But  /  have  had 
breakfast!" 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       137 

"So  have  L     What  a  place!" 

EHzabeth  did  not  answer,  but  her  smiling  eyes 
swept  the  glorious  circle  of  the  lake. 

"  How  soon  will  it  all  be  spoilt  and  vulgarised  ?" 
said  Delaine,  with  a  shrug.  "Next  year,  I  sup- 
pose, a  funicular,  to  the  top  of  the  glacier." 

Elizabeth  cried  out. 

"Why  not.f*"  he  asked  her,  as  he  rather  coolly 
and  deliberately  took  his  seat  beside  her.  "You 
applaud  telephones  on  the  prairies;  why  not 
funiculars  here  ?" 

"The  one  serves,  the  other  spoils,"  said  Eliza- 
beth   eagerly. 

"Serves  whom.?  Spoils  what?"  The  voice 
was  cold.     "All  travellers  are  not  like  yourself." 

"I  am  not  afraid.  The  Canadians  will  guard 
their  heritage." 

"  How  dull  England  will  seem  to  you  when  you 
go  back  to  it!"  he  said  to  her,  after  a  moment. 
His  tone  had  an  under-note  of  bitterness  which 
Elizabeth  uncomfortably  recognised. 

"Oh!  I  have  a  way  of  liking  what  I  must 
like,"  she  said,  hurriedly.  "Just  now,  certainly, 
I  am  in  love  with  deserts  —  flat  or  mountainous  — 
tempered  by  a  private  car." 

He  laughed  perfunctorily.  And  suddenly  it 
seemed  to  her  that  he  had  come  out  to  seek  her 
with  a  purpose,  and  that  a  critical  moment  might 


138       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

be  approaching.  Her  cheeks  flushed,  and  to 
hide  them  she  leant  over  the  water's  edge  and 
began  to  trail  her  finger  in  its  clear  wave. 

He,  however,  sat  in  hesitation,  looking  at  her, 
the  prey  of  thoughts  to  which  she  had  no  clue. 
He  could  not  make  up  his  mind,  though  he  had 
just  spent  an  almost  sleepless  night  on  the  attempt 
to  do  it. 

The  silence  became  embarrassing.  Then,  if  he 
still  groped,  she  seemed  to  see  her  way,  and  took  it. 

"  It  was  very  good  of  you  to  come  out  and  join 
our  wanderings,"  she  said  suddenly.  Her  voice 
was  clear  and  kind.     He  started. 

"You  know  I  could  ask  for  nothing  better," 
was  his  slow  reply,  not  without  dignity.  "It 
has  been  an  immense  privilege  to  see  you  like 
this,  day  by  day." 

Elizabeth's  pulse  quickened. 

"How  can  I  manage  it?"  she  desperately 
thought.     "But  I  must " 

"That's  very  sweet  of  you,"  she  said  aloud, 
"when  I  have  bored  you  so  with  my  raptures. 
And  now  it's  coming  to  an  end,  like  all  nice  things. 
Philip  and  I  think  of  staying  a  little  in  Vancouver. 
And  the  Governor  has  asked  us  to  go  over  to 
Victoria  for  a  few  days.  You,  I  suppose,  will 
be  doing  the  proper  round,  and  going  back  by 
Seattle  and  San  Francisco  ?" 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       139 

Delaine  received  the  blow  —  and  understood 
it.  There  had  been  no  definite  plans  ahead. 
Tacitly,  it  had  been  assumed,  he  thought,  that 
he  was  to  return  with  them  to  Montreal  and 
England.  This  gentle  question,  then,  was  Eliza- 
beth's way  of  telling  him  that  his  hopes  were 
vain  and  his  journey  fruitless. 

He  had  not  often  been  crossed  in  his  life,  and 
a  flood  of  resentment  surged  up  in  a  very  per- 
plexed mind. 

"Thank  you.  Yes  —  I  shall  go  home  by 
San  Francisco." 

The  touch  of  haughtiness  in  his  manner,  the 
manner  of  one  accustomed  all  his  life  to  be  a 
prominent  and  considered  person  in  the  world, 
did  not  disguise  from  Elizabeth  the  soreness 
underneath.  It  was  hard  to  hurt  her  old  friend. 
But  she  could  only  sit  as  though  she  felt  nothing  — 
meant  nothing  —  of  any  importance. 

And  she  achieved  it  to  perfection.  Delaine, 
through  all  his  tumult  of  feeling,  was  sharply 
conscious  of  her  grace,  her  reticence,  her  soft 
dignity.  They  were  exactly  what  he  coveted  in 
a  wife  —  what  he  hoped  he  had  captured  in  Eliza- 
beth. How  was  it  they  had  been  snatched  from 
him  .?  He  turned  blindly  on  the  obstacle  that  had 
risen  in  his  path,  and  the  secret  he  had  not  yet 
decided  how  to  handle  began  to  run  away  with  him. 


HO       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

He  bent  forward,  with  a  slightly  heightened 
colour. 

"Lady  Merton  —  we  might  not  have  another 
opportunity  —  will  you  allov/  me  a  few  frank 
words  with  you  —  the  privilege  of  an  old  friend  ?" 

Elizabeth  turned  her  face  to  him,  and  a  pair 
of  startled  eyes  that  tried  not  to  waver. 

"Of  course,  Mr.  Arthur,"  she  said  smiling. 
"Have  I  been  doing  anything  dreadful .?" 

"May  I  ask  what  you  personally  know  of  this 
Mr.  Anderson.?" 

He  saw  —  or  thought  he  saw  —  her  brace  her- 
self under  the  sudden  surprise  of  the  name,  and 
her  momentary  discomfiture  pleased  him. 

"  What  I  know  of  Mr.  Anderson  ? "  she  repeated 
wondering.  "Why,  no  more  than  we  all  know. 
What  do  you  mean,  Mr.  Arthur .?  Ah,  yes,  I 
remember,  you  first  met  him  in  Winnipeg- 
we  made  acquaintance  with  him  the  day 
before." 

"  For  the  first  time  t  But  you  are  now  seeing 
a  great  deal  of  him.  Are  you  quite  sure  —  for- 
give me  if  I  seem  impertinent  —  that  he  is  —  quite 
the  person  to  be  admitted  to  your  daily  compan- 
ionship .?" 

He  spoke  slowly  and  harshly.  The  effort 
required  before  a  naturally  amiable  and  nervous 
man  could  bring  himself  to  put  such  an  uncom- 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       141 

fortable  question  made  it  appear  particularly 
offensive. 

*'Our  daily  companionship?"  repeated  Eliza- 
beth in  bewilderment.  "What  can  you  mean, 
Mr.  Arthur  ?  What  is  wrong  with  Mr.  Anderson  } 
You  saw  that  everybody  at  Winnipeg  seemed  to 
know  him  and  respect  him;  people  like  the  Chief 
Justice,  and  the  Senator  —  what  was  his  name  ?  — 
and  Monsieur  Mariette.  I  don't  understand  why 
you  ask  me  such  a  thing.  Why  should  we  suppose 
there  are  any  mysteries  about  Mr.  Anderson.?" 

Unconsciously  her  slight  figure  had  stiffened, 
her  voice  had  changed. 

Delaine  felt  an  admonitory  qualm.  He  would 
have  drawn  back;  but  it  was  too  late.  He  went 
on  doggedly  — 

"Were  not  all  these  persons  you  named 
acquainted  with  Mr.  Anderson  in  his  public 
capacity  ?  His  success  in  the  strike  of  last  year 
brought  him  a  great  notoriety.  But  his  private 
history  —  his  family  and  antecedents  —  have  you 
gathered  anything  at  all  about  them  ?" 

Something  that  he  could  not  decipher  flashed 
through  Elizabeth's  expression.  It  was  a  strange 
and  thrilling  sense  that  what  she  had  gathered 
she  would  not  reveal  for  —  a  kingdom! 

"  Monsieur  Mariette  told  me  all  that  anyone 
need  want  to  know!"    she  cried,  breathing  quick. 


142       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

"Ask  him  what  he  thinks  —  what  he  feels!  But 
it  you  ask  me,  I  think  Mr.  Anderson  carries  his 
history  in  his  face." 

Delaine  pondered  a  moment,  while  Elizabeth 
waited,  challenging,  expectant,  her  brown  eyes 
all  vivacity. 

"Well  —  some  facts  have  come  to  my  knowl- 
edge," he  said,  at  last,  "which  have  made  me 
ask  you  these  questions.  My  only  object  —  you 
must,  you  will  admit  that! — is  to  save  you  possible 
pain  —  a  possible  shock." 

"Mr.  Arthur!"  the  voice  was  peremptory  — 
"  If  you  have  learned  anything  about  Mr.  Ander- 
son's private  history  —  by  chance  —  without  his 
knowledge  —  that  perhaps  he  would  rather  we 
did  not  know  —  I  beg  you  will  not  tell  me  — 
indeed  —  please  —  I  forbid  you  to  tell  me.  We 
owe  him  much  kindness  these  last  few  weeks. 
I    cannot   gossip    about   him    behind    his   back." 

All  her  fine  slenderness  of  form,  her  small 
delicacy  of  feature,  seemed  to  him  tense  and 
vibrating,  like  some  precise  and  perfect  instrument 
strained  to  express  a  human  feeling  or  intention. 
But  what  feeling .?  While  he  divined  it,  was  she 
herself  unconscious  of  it  ?     His  bitterness  grew. 

"Dear  Lady  Merton  —  can  you  not  trust  an 
old  friend?" 

She  did  not  soften. 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       143 

"I  do  trust  him.  But" —  her  smile  flashed  — 
"even  new  acquaintances  have  their  rights." 

"You  will  not  understand,"  he  said,  earnestly. 
"What  is  in  my  mind  came  to  me,  through  no 
wish  or  will  of  mine.  You  cannot  suppose  that 
I  have  been  prying  into  Mr.  Anderson's  affairs! 
But  now  that  the  information  is  mine,  I  feel 
a  great  responsibility  towards  you." 

"Don't  feel  it.     I  am  a  wilful  woman." 

"A  rather  perplexing  one!  May  I  at  least  be 
sure  that"  —  he  hesitated  —  "that  you  will  be 
on  your  guard  ?" 

"On  my  guard  .^"  she  lifted  her  eyebrows 
proudly  —  "  and  against  what  .^ " 

"That  is  precisely  what  you  won't  let  me  tell 
you. 

She  laughed  —  a  little  fiercely. 

"There  we  are  ;  no  forrarder.  But  please 
remember,  Mr,  Arthur,  how  soon  we  shall  all 
be  separating.  Nothing  very  dreadful  can  happen 
in  these  few  days  —  can  it  ^" 

For  the  first  time  there  was  a  touch  of  malice 
in  her  smile. 

Delaine  rose,  took  one  or  two  turns  along  the 
path  in  front  of  her,  and  then  suddenly  stopped 
beside  her. 

"I  think"  —  he  said,  with  emphasis,  "that 
Mr.   Anderson   will   probably   find   himself  sum- 


144       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

moned  away  —  immediately  —  before  you  get 
to  Vancouver.  But  that  I  will  discuss  with  him. 
You  could  give  me  no  address,  so  I  have  not  yet 
been  able  to  communicate  with  him." 

Again  Elizabeth's  eyebrows  went  up.     She  rose. 

"Of  course  you  will  do  what  you  think  best. 
Shall  we  go  back  to  the  hotel  ?" 

They  walked  along  in  silence.  He  saw  that 
she  was  excited,  and  that  he  had  completely  missed 
his  stroke;    but  he  did  not  see  how  to  mend  the 


situation. 
<< 


Oh!  there  is  Philip,  going  to  fish,"  said  Eliza- 
beth at  last,  as  though  nothing  had  happened. 
"I  wondered  what  could  possibly  have  got  him 
up  so  early." 

Philip  waved  to  her  as  she  spoke,  shouting 
something  which  the  mountain  echoes  absorbed. 
He  was  accompanied  by  a  young  man,  who  seemed 
to  be  attached  to  the  hotel  as  guide,  fisherman, 
hunter  —  at  the  pleasure  of  visitors.  But  Eliza- 
beth had  already  discovered  that  he  had  the 
speech  of  a  gentleman,  and  attended  the  University 
of  Manitoba  during  the  winter.  In  the  absence 
of  Anderson,  PhiHp  had  no  doubt  annexed  him 
for  the  morning. 

There  was  a  pile  of  logs  lying  on  the  lake  side. 
Philip,  rod  in  hand,  began  to  scramble  over  them 
to  a  point  where  several  large  trunks  overhung 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       145 

deep  water.  His  companion  meanwhile  was 
seated  on  the  moss,  busy  with  some  preparations. 

"I  hope  PhiHp  will  be  careful,"  said  Delaine, 
suddenly.     "There  is  nothing  so  slippery  as  logs." 

Elizabeth,  who  had  been  dreaming,  looked 
up  anxiously.  As  she  did  so  Philip,  high  perched 
on  the  furthest  logs,  turned  again  to  shout  to  his 
sister,  his  light  figure  clear  against  the  sunlit  dis- 
tance. Then  the  figure  wavered,  there  was  a 
sound  of  crashing  wood,  and  Philip  fell  head- 
foremost into  the  lake  before  him. 

The  young  man  on  the  bank  looked  up,  threw 
away  his  rod  and  his  coat,  and  was  just  plunging 
into  the  lake  when  he  was  anticipated  by  another 
man  who  had  come  running  down  the  bank  of 
the  hotel,  and  was  already  in  the  water.  Eliza- 
beth, as  she  rushed  along  the  edge,  recognized 
Anderson.  Philip  seemed  to  have  disappeared; 
but  Anderson  dived,  and  presently  emerged  with 
a  limp  burden.  The  guide  was  now  aiding  him, 
and  between  them  they  brought  young  Gaddesden 
to  land.  The  whole  thing  passed  so  rapidly  that 
Delaine  and  Elizabeth,  running  at  full  speed, 
had  hardly  reached  the  spot  before  Anderson  was 
on  the  shore,  bearing  the  lad  in  his  arms. 

Elizabeth  bent  over  him  with  a  moan  of  anguish. 
He  seemed  to  her  dead. 

"He  has  only  fainted,"  said  Anderson  peremp- 


146       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

torily.  "We  must  get  him  in."  And  he  hurried 
on,  refusing  Delaine's  help,  carrying  the  thin 
body  apparently  with  ease  along  the  path  and 
up  the  steps  to  the  hotel.  The  guide  had  already 
been  sent  flying  ahead  to  warn  the  house- 
hold. 

Thus,   by   one   of  the   commonplace   accidents 
of  travel,  the  whole  scene  was  changed  for  this 
group    of   travellers.     Philip    Gaddesden    would 
have  taken  small  harm  from  his  tumble  into  the 
lake,  but  for  the  fact  that  the  effects  of  rheumatic 
fever  were  still  upon  him.     As  it  was,  a  certain 
amount  of  fever,  and  some  heart-symptoms  that 
it  was  thought  had  been  overcome,  reappeared, 
and  within  a  few  hours  of  the  accident  it  became 
plain  that,  although  he  was  in  no  danger,  they 
would  be  detained  at  least  ten  days,  perhaps  a 
fortnight,  at  Lake  Louise.     Elizabeth  sat  down 
in  deep  despondency  to  write  to  her  mother,  and 
then  lingered  awhile  with  the  letter  before  her, 
her  head  in  her  hands,  pondering  with  emotion 
what  she  and  Philip  owed  to  George  Anderson, 
who  had,  it  seemed,  arrived  by  a  night  train,  and 
walked  up  to  the  hotel,  in  the  very  nick  of  time. 
As  to  the  accident  itself,  no  doubt  the  guide,  a  fine 
swimmer  and  coureur  de  bois,  would  have  been 
sufficient,    unaided,    to    save    her    brother.     But 
after  all,  it  was  Anderson's  strong  arms  that  had 


LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST       147 

drawn  him  from  the  icy  depths  of  the  lake,  and 
carried  him  to  safety!  And  since?  Never  had 
telephone  and  railway,  and  general  knowledge 
of  the  resources  at  command,  been  worked  more 
skilfully  than  by  him,  and  the  kind  people  of  the 
hotel.  "Don't  be  the  least  anxious"  —  she  had 
written  to  her  mother  —  "we  have  a  capital 
doctor  —  all  the  chemist's  stuff  we  want  —  and 
we  could  have  a  nurse  at  any  moment.  Mr. 
Anderson  has  only  to  order  one  up  from  the  camp 
hospital  in  the  pass.  But  for  the  present,  Simp- 
son and  I  are  enough  for  the  nursing." 

She  heard  voices  in  the  next  room;  a  faint 
question  from  Philip,  Anderson  replying.  What 
an  influence  this  man  of  strong  character  had 
already  obtained  over  her  wilful,  self-indulgent 
brother!  She  saw  the  signs  of  it  in  many  direc- 
tions; and  she  was  passionately  grateful  for  it. 
Her  thoughts  went  wandering  back  over  the  past 
three  weeks  —  over  the  whole  gradual  unveiling 
of  Anderson's  personality.  She  recalled  her  first 
impressions  of  him  the  day  of  the  "sink-hole." 
An  ordinary,  strong,  capable,  ambitious  young 
man,  full  of  practical  interests,  with  brusque 
manners,  and  a  visible  lack  of  some  of  the  outer 
wrappings  to  which  she  was  accustomed  —  it 
was  so  that  she  had  first  envisaged  him.  Then 
at   Winnipeg  —  through    Mariette   and   others  — 


148       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

she  had  seen  him  as  other  men  saw  him,  his  seniors 
and  contemporaries,  the  men  engaged  with  him 
in  the  making  of  this  vast  country.  She  had 
appreciated  his  character  in  what  might  be 
hereafter,  apparently,  its  public  aspects;  the 
character  of  one  for  whom  the  world  surrounding 
him  was  eagerly  prophesying  a  future  and  a 
career.  His  profound  loyalty  to  Canada,  and 
to  certain  unspoken  ideals  behind,  which  were 
really  the  source  of  the  loyalty;  the  atmosphere 
at  once  democratic  and  imperial  in  which  his 
thoughts  and  desires  moved,  which  had  more 
than  once  communicated  its  passion  to  her;  a 
touch  of  poetry,  of  melancholy,  of  greatness  even 
—  all  this  she  had  gradually  perceived.  Winnie 
peg  and  the  prairie  journey  had  developed  him 
thus  before  her. 

So  much  for  the  second  stage  in  her  knowledge 
of  him.  There  was  a  third;  she  was  in  the  midst 
of  it.  Her  face  flooded  with  colour  against  her 
will.  "Out  of  the  strong  shall  come  forth  sweet- 
ness." The  words  rushed  into  her  mind.  She 
hoped,  as  one  who  wished  him  well,  that  he  would 
marry  soon  and  happily.  And  the  woman  who 
married  him  would  find  it  no  tame  future. 

Suddenly  Delaine's  warnings  occurred  to  her. 
She  laughed,  a  little  hysterically. 

Could  anyone  have  shown  himself  more   help- 


LADY   MERTOxN,   COLONIST       149 

less,  useless,  incompetent,  than  Arthur  Delaine 
since  the  accident  ?  Yet  he  was  still  on  the  spot. 
She  realised,  indeed,  that  it  was  hardly  possible 
for  their  old  friend  to  desert  them  under  the 
circumstances.  But  he  merely  represented  an 
additional  burden. 

A  knock  at  the  sitting-room  door  disturbed 
her.     Anderson  appeared. 

"I  am  off  to  Banff,  Lady  Merton,"  he  said 
from  the  threshold.  "I  think  I  have  all  your 
commissions.     Is  your  letter  ready?" 

She  sealed  it  and  gave  it  to  him.  Then  she 
looked  up  at  him;  and  for  the  first  time  he  saw 
her  tremulous  and  shaken;  not  for  her  brother, 
but  for  himself. 

"  I  don't  know  how  to  thank  you."  She  offered 
her  hand;  and  one  of  those  beautiful  looks  — 
generous,  friendly,  sincere  —  of  which  she  had 
the  secret. 

He,  too,  flushed,  his  eyes  held  a  moment  by 
hers.  Then  he,  somewhat  brusquely,  disengaged 
himself. 

"Why,  I  did  nothing!  He  was  in  no  danger; 
the  guide  would  have  had  him  out  in  a  twinkle. 
I  wish"  —  he  frowned  —  "you  wouldn't  look 
so  done  up  over  it." 

"Oh!     I  am  all  right.'* 

**I  brought  you  a   book  this   morning.     Merci- 


150       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

fully  I  left  it  in  the  drawing-room,  so  it   hasn't 
been  in  the  lake." 

He  drew  it  from  his  pocket.  It  was  a  French 
novel  she  had  expressed  a  wish  to  read. 

She  exclaimed, 

"  How  did  you  get  it  ?" 

"I  found  Mariette  had  it  with  him.  He  sends 
it  me  from  Vancouver.  Will  you  promise  to 
read  it  —  and  rest  ?" 

He  drew  a  sofa  towards  the  window.  The 
June  sunset  was  blazing  on  the  glacier  without. 
Would  he  next  offer  to  put  a  shawl  over  her, 
and  tuck  her  up  ?  She  retreated  hastily  to  the 
writing-table,  one  hand  upon  it.  He  saw  the  lines 
of  her  gray  dress,  her  small  neck  and  head;  the 
Quakerish  smoothness  of  her  brown  hair,  against 
the  light.  The  little  figure  was  grace,  refinement, 
embodied.  But  it  was  a  grace  that  implied  an 
environment  —  the  cosmopolitan,  luxurious 
environment,  in  which  such  women  naturallv 
move. 

His  look  clouded.  He  said  a  hasty  good-bye 
and  departed.  Elizabeth  was  left  breathing  quick, 
one  hand  on  her  breast.  It  was  as  though  she  had 
escaped  something  —  or  missed  something. 

As  he  left  the  hotel,  Anderson  found  himself 
intercepted  by  Delaine  in  the  garden,  and  paused 
at  once  to  give  him  the  latest  news. 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       151 

"The  report  is  really  good,  everything  con- 
sidered," he  said,  with  a  cordiality  born  of  their 
common  anxiety;  and  he  repeated  the  doctor's 
last  words  to  himself. 

"Excellent!"  said  Delaine;  then,  clearing  his 
throat,  "Mr.  Anderson,  may  I  have  some  con- 
versation with  you  ?" 

Anderson  looked  surprised,  threw  him  a  keen 
glance,  and  invited  him  to  accompany  him  part 
of  the  way  to  Laggan.  They  turned  into  a  sol- 
itary road,  running  between  the  woods.  It  was 
late  evening,  and  the  sun  was  striking  through 
the  Laggan  valley  beneath  them  in  low  shafts 
of  gold  and  purple. 

"I  am  afraid  what  I  have  to  say  will  be  dis- 
agreeable to  you,"  began  Delaine,  abruptly. 
"  And  on  this  particular  day  —  when  we  owe  you 
so  much  —  it  is  more  than  disagreeable  to  myself. 
But  I  have  no  choice.  By  some  extraordinary 
chance,  with  which  I  beg  you  to  believe  my  own 
will  has  had  nothing  to  do,  I  have  become 
acquainted  with  something  —  something  that  con- 
cerns you  privately  —  something  that  I  fear  will 
be  a  great  shock  to  you." 

Anderson  stood  still. 

"What  can  you  possibly  mean.?"  he  said,  in 
growing  amazement. 

"  1  was  accosted  the  night  before  last,  as  I  was 


152       LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST 

strolling  along  the  railway  line,  by  a  man  I  had 
never  seen  before,  a  man  who  —  pardon  me,  it 
is  most  painful  to  me  to  seem  to  be  interfering 
with  anyone's  private  affairs  —  who  announced 
himself  as" — the  speaker's  nervous  stammer 
intervened  before  he  jerked  out  the  words  —  "  as 
your  father!" 

"As  my  father?  Somebody  must  be  mad!" 
said  Anderson  quietly.  "  My  father  has  been 
dead  ten  years." 

"I  am  afraid  there  is  a  mistake.  The  man 
who  spoke  to  me  is  aware  that  you  suppose  him 
dead  —  he  had  his  own  reasons,  he  declares,  for 
allowing  you  to  remain  under  a  misconception; 
he  now  wishes  to  reopen  communications  with 
you,  and  to  my  great  regret,  to  my  indignation, 
I  may  say  he  chose  me  —  an  entire  stranger  — 
as  his  intermediary.  He  seems  to  have  watched 
our  party  all  the  way  from  Winnipeg,  where  he 
first  saw  you,  casually,  in  the  street.  Naturally 
I  tried  to  escape  from  him  —  to  refer  him  to  you. 
But  I  could  not  possibly  escape  from  him,  at  night, 
with  no  road  for  either  of  us  but  the  railway  line. 
I  was  at  his  mercy." 

"What  was  his  reason  for  not  coming  direct  to 
me?" 

They  were  still  pausing  in  the  road.  Delaine 
could  see  in  the  failing  light  that  Anderson  had 


LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST       153 

grown  pale.  But  he  perceived  also  an  expression 
of  scornful  impatience  in  the  blue  eyes  fixed  upon 
him. 

"He  has  professed  to  be  afraid " 

"That  I  should  murder  him?"  said  Anderson 
with  a  laugh.  "And  he  told  you  some  sort  of 
a  story  ?" 

"A  long  one,  I  regret  to  say.'* 

"And  not  to  my  credit  V 

"The  tone  of  it  was  certainly  hostile.  I  would 
rather  not  repeat  it." 

"I  should  not  dream  of  asking  you  to  do  so. 
And  where  is  this  precious  individual  to  be  found  ?" 

Delaine  named  the  address  which  had  been 
given  him  —  of  a  lodging  mainly  for  railway  men 
near  Laggan. 

"I  will  look  him  up,"  said  Anderson  briefly. 
"The  whole  story  of  course  is  a  mere  attempt  to 
get  money  —  for  what  reason  I  do  not  know; 
but  I  will  look  into  it." 

Delaine  was  silent.  Anderson  divined  from 
his  manner  that  he  believed  the  story  true.  In 
the  minds  of  both  the  thought  of  Lady  Merton 
emerged.  Anderson  scorned  to  ask,  "Have  you 
said  anything  to  them?"  and  Delaine  was  con- 
scious of  a  nervous  fear  lest  he  should  ask  it.  In 
the  light  of  the  countenance  beside  him,  no  less 
than  of  the  event  of  the  day,  his  behaviour  of  the 


154       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

morning  began  to  seem  to  him  more  than  disput- 
able. In  the  morning  he  had  seemed  to  himself 
the  defender  of  Elizabeth  and  the  class  to  which 
they  both  belonged  against  low-born  adventurers 
with  disreputable  pasts.  But  as  he  stood  there, 
confronting  the  "adventurer,"  his  conscience  as 
a  gentleman  —  which  was  his  main  and  typical 
conscience  —  pricked  him. 

The  inward  qualm,  however,  only  stiffened 
his  manner.  And  Anderson  asked  nothing.  He 
turned  towards  Laggan. 

*'Good  night.  I  will  let  you  know  the  result 
of  my  investigations."  And,  with  the  shortest 
of  nods,  he  went  oif  at  a  swinging  pace  down  the 
road. 

"I  have  only  done  my  duty,"  argued  Delaine 
with  himself  as  he  returned  to  the  hotel.  "It 
was  uncommonly  difficult  to  do  it  at  such  a 
moment!  But  to  him  I  have  no  obligations 
whatever;  my  obligations  are  to  Lady  Merton 
and  her  family." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

It  was  dark  when  Anderson  reached  Laggan,  if 
that  can  be  called  darkness  which  was  rather  a 
starry  twihght,  interfused  with  the  whiteness  of 
snow-field  and  glacier.  He  first  of  all  despatched 
a  message  to  Banff  for  Elizabeth's  commissions. 
Then  he  made  straight  for  the  ugly  frame  house  of 
which  Delaine  had  given  him  the  address.  It  was 
kept  by  a  couple  well  known  to  him,  an  Irishman 
and  his  wife  who  made  their  living  partly  by  odd 
jobs  on  the  railway,  partly  by  lodging  men  in 
search  of  work  in  the  various  construction  camps 
of  the  line.  To  all  such  persons  Anderson  was 
a  familiar  figure,  especially  since  the  great  strike 
of  the  year  before. 

The  house  stood  by  itself  in  a  plot  of  cleared 
ground,  some  two  or  three  hundred  yards  from 
the  railway  station.  A  rough  road  through  the 
pine  wood  led  up  to  it. 

Anderson  knocked,  and  Mrs.  Ginnell  came  to 
the  door,  a  tired,  and  apparently  sulky  woman. 

"I  hear  you  have  a  lodger  here,  Mrs.  Ginnell," 
said  Anderson,  standing  in  the  doorway,  "a  man 

155 


156       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

called  McEwen;  and  that  he  wants  to  see  me  on 
some  business  or  other." 

Mrs.  Ginnell's  countenance  darkened. 

"We  have  an  old  man  here,  Mr.  Anderson, 
as  answers  to  that  name,  but  you'll  get  no  business 
out  of  him  —  and  I  don't  believe  he  have  any 
business  with  any  decent  crater.  When  he  arrived 
two  days  ago  he  was  worse  for  liquor,  took  on  at 
Calgary.  I  made  my  husband  look  after  him 
that  night  to  see  he  didn't  get  at  nothing,  but 
yesterday  he  slipped  us  both,  an'  I  believe  he's 
now  in  that  there  outhouse,  a-sleeping  it  off. 
Old  men  like  him  should  be  sent  somewhere  safe, 
an'  kep'  there." 

"I'll  go  and  see  if  he's  awake,  Mrs.  Ginnell. 
Don't  you  trouble  to  come.     Any  other  lodgers  .?" 

"No,  sir.  There  was  a  bunch  of  'em  left  this 
morning  —  got  work  on  the  Crow's  Nest." 

Anderson  made  his  way  to  the  little  "shack,'* 
Ginnell's  house  of  the  first  year,  now  used  as  a 
kind  of  general  receptacle  for  tools,  rubbish  and 
stores. 

He  looked  in.  On  a  heap  of  straw  in  the  corner 
lay  a  huddled  figure,  a  kind  of  human  rag.  Ander- 
son paused  a  moment,  then  entered,  hung  the 
lamp  he  had  brought  with  him  on  a  peg,  and 
closed  the  door  behind  him. 

He   stood   looking   down    at   the   sleeper,   who 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       157 

was  in  the  restless  stage  before  waking.  McEwen 
threw  himself  from  side  to  side,  muttered,  and 
stretched. 

Slowly  a  deep  colour  flooded  Anderson's  cheeks 
and  brow;  his  hands  hanging  beside  him  clenched; 
he  checked  a  groan  that  was  also  a  shudder.  The 
abjectness  of  the  figure,  the  terrible  identification 
proceeding  in  his  mind,  the  memories  it  evoked, 
were  rending  and  blinding  him.  The  winter 
morning  on  the  snow-strewn  prairie,  the  smell 
of  smoke  blown  towards  him  on  the  wind,  the 
flames  of  the  burning  house,  the  horror  of  the 
search  among  the  ruins,  his  father's  confession, 
and  his  own  rage  and  despair  —  deep  in  the 
tissues  of  life  these  images  were  stamped.  The 
anguish  of  them  ran  once  more  through  his  being. 

How  had  he  been  deceived  ?  And  what  was 
to  be  done  ?  He  sat  down  on  a  heap  of  rubbish 
beside  the  straw,  looking  at  his  father.  He  had 
last  seen  him  as  a  man  of  fifty,  vigorous,  red-haired, 
coarsely  handsome,  though  already  undermined 
by  drink.  The  man  lying  on  the  straw  was 
approaching  seventy,  and  might  have  been  much 
older.  His  matted  hair  was  nearly  white, 
face  blotched  and  cavernous;  and  the  relaxation 
of  sleep  emphasised  the  mean  cunning  of  the 
mouth.  His  clothing  was  torn  and  filth}',  the 
hands  repulsive. 


158       LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST 

Anderson  could  only  bear  a  few  minutes  of 
this  spectacle.  A  natural  shame  intervened.  He 
bent  over  his  father  and  called  him. 

**  Robert  Anderson!" 

A  sudden  shock  passed  through  the  sleeper. 
He  started  up,  and  Anderson  saw  his  hand  dart  for 
something  lying  beside  him,  no  doubt  a  revolver. 

But  Anderson  grasped  the  arm. 

"Don't  be  afraid;  you're  quite  safe." 

McEwen,  still  bewildered  by  sleep  and  drink, 
tried  to  shake  off  the  grasp,  to  see  who  it  was 
standing  over  him.  Anderson  released  him,  and 
moved   so  that  the  lamplight  fell  upon  himself. 

Slowly  McEwen's  faculties  came  together,  began 
to  work.  The  lamplight  showed  him  his  son 
George  —  the  fair-haired,  broad-shouldered  fellov/ 
he  had  been  tracking  all  these  days  —  and  he 
understood. 

He  straightened  himself,  with  an  attempt  at 
dignity. 

*'So  it's  you,  George.?     You  might  have  given 


me  notice." 


"Where  have  you  been  all  these  years.?"  said 
Anderson,  indistinctly.  "And  why  did  you  let 
me  believe  you  dead.?" 

"Well,  I  had  my  reasons,  George.  But  I  don't 
mean  to  go  into  'em.  All  that's  dead  and  gone. 
There  was  a  pack  of  fellows  then  on  my  shoulders 


LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST       159 

—  I  was  plumb  tired  of  'em.  I  had  to  get  rid 
of  —  I  did  get  rid  of  'em  —  and  you,  too.  I 
knew  you  were  inquiring  after  me,  and  I  didn't 
want  inquiries.  They  didn't  suit  me.  You  may 
conclude  what  you  like.  I  tell  you  those  times 
are  dead  and  gone.  But  it  seemed  to  me  that 
Robert  Anderson  was  best  put  away  for  a  bit. 
So  I  took  measures  according." 

"You  knew  I  was  deceived." 

"Yes,  I  knew,"  said  the  other  composedly. 
"Couldn't  be  helped." 

"And  where  have  you  been  since  .?" 

"  In  Nevada,  George  —  Comstock  —  silver- 
mining.  Rough  lot,  but  you  get  a  stroke  of  luck 
sometimes.  I've  got  a  chance  on  now  —  me  and 
a  friend  of  mine  —  that's  first-rate." 

"What  brought  you  back  to  Canada  ?" 

"Well,  it  was  your  aunt,  Mrs.  Harriet  Sykes. 
Ever  hear  of  her,  George  ?" 

Anderson  shook  his  head. 

"You  must  have  heard  of  her  when  you  were 
a  little  chap.  When  I  left  Ayrshire  in  1840  she 
was  a  lass  of  sixteen;  never  saw  her  since.  But 
she  married  a  man  well-to-do,  and  was  left  a  wid- 
der  with  no  children.  And  when  she  died  t'other 
day,  she'd  left  me  something  in  her  will,  and  told 
the  lawyers  to  advertise  over  here,  in  Canada 
and  the  States  —  both.     And  I  happened  on  the 


i6o       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

advertisement  in  a  Chicago  paper.  Told  yer  to 
call  on  Smith  &  Dawkins,  Winnipeg.  So  that 
was  how  I  came  to  see  Winnipeg  again." 

"When  were  you  there  ?" 

"Just  when  you  was,"  said  the  old  man,  with 
a  triumphant  look,  which  for  the  moment  effaced 
the  squalor  of  his  aspect.  "I  was  coming  out  of 
Smith  &  Dawkins's  with  the  money  in  my  pocket, 
when  I  saw  you  opposite,  just  going  into  a  shop. 
You  could  ha'  knocked  me  down  easy,  I  warrant 
ye.  Didn't  expect  to  come  on  yer  tracks  as  fast 
as  all  that.  But  there  you  were,  and  when  you 
came  out  and  went  down  t'  street,  I  just  followed 
you  at  a  safe  distance,  and  saw  you  go  into  the 
hotel.  Afterwards,  I  went  into  the  Free  Library 
to  think  a  bit,  and  then  I  saw  the  piece  in  the  paper 
about  you  and  that  Saskatchewan  place;  and  I 
got  hold  of  a  young  man  in  a  saloon  who  found 
out  all  about  you  and  those  English  swells  you've 
been  hanging  round  with;  and  that  same  night, 
when  you  boarded  the  train,  I  boarded  it,  too. 
See .?  Only  I  am  not  a  swell  like  you.  And 
here  we  are.     See  .?  " 

The  last  speech  was  delivered  with  a  mixture 
of  bravado,  cunning,  and  sinister  triumph.  Ander- 
son sat  with  his  head  in  his  hands,  his  eyes  on 
the  mud  floor,  listening.  When  it  was  over  he 
looked  up. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       i6i 

"Why  didn't  you  come  and  speak  to  me  at 
once  r 

The  other  hesitated. 

"Well,  I  wasn't  a  beauty  to  look  at.  Not 
much  of  a  credit  to  you,  am  I  ?  Didn't  think 
you'd  own  me.  And  I  don't  like  towns  —  too 
many  people  about.  Thought  I'd  catch  you 
somewhere  on  the  quiet.  Heard  you  was  going 
to  the  Rockies.  Thought  I  might  as  well  go 
round  by  Seattle  home.     See?" 

"You  have  had  plenty  of  chances  since  Winni- 
peg of  making  yourself  known  to  me,"  said  Ander- 
son sombrely.  "Why  did  you  speak  to  a  stranger 
instead  of  coming  direct  to  me  ^" 

McEwen  hesitated  a  moment. 

"Well,  I  wasn't  sure  of  you.  I  didn't  know 
how  you'd  take  it.  And  I'd  lost  my  nerve,  damn 
it!  the  last  few  years.  Thought  you  might  just 
kick  me  out,  or  set  the  police  on  me." 

Anderson  studied  the  speaker.  His  fair  skin 
was  deeply  flushed;  his  brow  frowned  uncon- 
sciously, reflecting  the  travail  of  thought  behind  it. 

"What  did  you  say  to  that  gentleman  the  other 
night.?" 

McEw^n  smiled  a  shifty  smile,  and  began  to 
pluck  some  pieces  of  straw  from  his  sleeve. 

"Don't  remember  just  what  I  did  say.  Noth- 
ing to  do  you  no  harm,  anyway.     I  might  have 


i62       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

said  you  were  never  an  easy  chap  to  get  on  with. 
I  might  have  said  that,  or  I  mightn't.  Think 
I  did.     Don't  remember." 

The  eyes  of  the  two  men  met  for  a  moment, 
Anderson's  bright  and  fixed.  He  divined  per- 
fectly what  had  been  said  to  the  EngHshman, 
Lady  Merton's  friend  and  travelHng  companion. 
A  father  overborne  by  misfortunes  and  poverty, 
disowned  by  a  prosperous  and  Pharisaical  son  — 
admitting  a  few  peccadilloes,  such  as  most  men 
forgive,  in  order  to  weigh  them  against  virtues, 
such  as  all  men  hate.  Old  age  and  infirmity  on 
the  one  hand;  mean  hardness  and  cruelty  on  the 
other.  Was  Elizabeth  already  contemplating  the 
picture  ? 

And  yet  —  No!  unless  perhaps  under  the 
shelter  of  darkness,  it  could  never  have  been 
possible  for  this  figure  before  him  to  play  the  part 
of  innocent  misfortune,  at  all  events.  Could 
debauch,  could  ruin  of  body  and  soul  be  put 
more  plainly .?  Could  they  express  themselves 
more  clearly  than  through  this  face  and  form  ? 

A  shudder  ran  through  Anderson,  a  cry  against 
fate,  a  sick  wondering  as  to  his  own  past  responsi- 
bility, a  horror  of  the  future.  Then  his  will 
strengthened,  and  he  set  himself  quietly  to  see 
what  could  be  done. 

"We  can't  talk  here,"   he  said  to  his  father. 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       163 

"Come  back  into  the  house.  There  are  some 
rooms  vacant.     Lll  take  them  for  you." 

McEwen  rose  with  difficulty,  groaning  as  he 
put  his  right  foot  to  the  ground.  Anderson  then 
perceived  that  the  right  foot  and  ankle  were 
wrapped  round  with  a  bloodstained  rag,  and  was 
told  that  the  night  before  their  owner  had  stumbled 
over  a  jug  in  Mrs.  Ginnell's  kitchen,  breaking 
the  jug  and  inflicting  some  deep  cuts  on  his  own 
foot  and  ankle.  McEwen,  indeed,  could  only 
limp  along,  with  mingled  curses  and  lamentations, 
supported  by  Anderson.  In  the  excitement  of 
his  son's  appearance  he  had  forgotten  his  injury. 
The  pain  and  annoyance  of  it  returned  upon  him 
now  with  added  sharpness,  and  Anderson  realised 
that  here  was  yet  another  complication  as  they 
moved  across  the  yard. 

A  few  words  to  the  astonished  Mrs.  Ginnell 
sufficed  to  secure  all  her  vacant  rooms,  four  in 
number.  Anderson  put  his  father  in  one  on  the 
ground  floor,  then  shut  the  door  on  him  and  w^ent 
back  to  the  woman  of  the  house.  She  stood 
looking  at  him,  flushed,  in  a  bewildered  silence. 
But  she  and  her  husband  owed  various  kind- 
nesses to  Anderson,  and  he  quickly  made  up  his 
mind. 

In  a  very  few  words  he  quietly  told  her  the 
real  facts,  confiding  them  both  to  her  self-interest 


i64       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

and  her  humanity.  McEwen  was  to  be  her  only 
lodger  till  the  next  step  could  be  determined. 
She  was  to  wait  on  him,  to  keep  drink  from  him, 
to  get  him  clothes.  Her  husband  was  to  go  out 
with  him,  if  he  should  insist  on  going  out;  but 
Anderson  thought  his  injur}''  would  keep  him 
quiet  for  a  day  or  two.  Meanwhile,  no  babbling 
to  anybody.  And,  of  course,  generous  payment 
for  all  that  was  asked  of  them. 

But  Mrs.  Ginnell  understood  that  she  was 
being  appealed  to  not  only  commercially,  but  as 
a  woman  with  a  heart  in  her  body  and  a  good 
share  of  Irish  wit.  That  moved  and  secured  her. 
She  threw  herself  nobly  into  the  business.  Ander- 
son might  command  her  as  he  pleased,  and  she 
answered  for  her  man.  Renewed  groans  from 
the  room  next  door  disturbed  them.  Mrs.  Ginnell 
went  in  to  answer  them,  and  came  out  demanding 
a  doctor.  The  patient  was  in  much  pain,  the 
wounds    looked    bad,    and    she    suspected    fever. 

*'Yo  can't  especk  places  to  heal  with  such  as 
him,"  she  said,  grimly. 

With  doggedness,  Anderson  resigned  himself. 
He  went  to  the  station  and  sent  a  wire  to  Field 
for  a  doctor.  What  would  happen  when  he 
arrived  he  did  not  know.  He  had  made  no  com- 
pact with  his  father.  If  the  old  man  chose  to 
announce   himself,   so   be   it.     Anderson   did   not 


LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST       165 

mean  to  bargain  or  sue.  Other  men  have  had 
to  bear  such  burdens  in  the  face  of  the  world. 
Should  it  fall  to  him  to  be  forced  to  take  his  up 
in  like  manner,  let  him  set  his  teeth  and  shoulder 
it,  sore  and  shaken  as  he  was.  He  felt  a  fierce 
confidence  that  could  still  make  the  world  respect 
him. 

An  hour  passed  away.  An  answer  came  from 
Field  to  the  effect  that  a  doctor  would  be  sent  up 
on  a  freight  train  just  starting,  and  might  be 
expected  shortly. 

While  Mrs.  Ginnell  was  still  attending  on  her 
lodger,  Anderson  went  out  into  the  starlight  to 
try  and  think  out  the  situation.  The  night  was 
clear  and  balmy.  The  high  snows  glimmered 
through  the  lingering  twilight,  and  in  the  air 
there  was  at  last  a  promise  of  "midsummer 
pomps."  Pine  woods  and  streams  breathed  fresh- 
ness, and  when  in  his  walk  along  the  railway  line  — 
since  there  is  no  other  road  through  the  Kicking 
Horse  Pass  —  he  reached  a  point  whence  the 
great  Yoho  valley  became  visible  to  the  right, 
he  checked  the  rapid  movement  which  had 
brought  him  a  kind  of  physical  comfort,  and  set 
himself —  in  face  of  that  far-stretching  and  splen- 
did solitude  —  to  wrestle  with  calamity. 

First  of  all  there  was  the  Englishman  —  Delaine 
-—and  the  letter  that  must  be  written  him.     But 


i66       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

there,  also,  no  evasions,  no  suppliancy.  Delaine 
must  be  told  that  the  story  was  true,  and  would 
no  doubt  think  himself  entitled  to  act  upon  it. 
The  protest  on  behalf  of  Lady  Merton  implied 
already  in  his  manner  that  afternoon  was  humili- 
ating enough.  The  smart  of  it  was  still  tingling 
through  Anderson's  being.  He  had  till  now  felt 
a  kind  of  Instinctive  contempt  for  Delaine  as  a 
fine  gentleman  with  a  useless  education,  inclined 
to  patronise  "  colonists."  The  two  men  had 
jarred  from  the  beginning,  and  at  Banff,  Anderson 
had  both  divined  in  him  the  possible  suitor  of 
Lady  Merton,  and  had  also  become  aware  that 
Delaine  resented  his  own  intrusion  upon  the 
party,  and  the  rapid  Intimacy  which  had  grown 
up  berv\'een  him  and  the  brother  and  sister.  Well, 
let  him  use  his  chance!  If  it  so  pleased  him.  No 
promise  whatever  should  be  asked  of  him;  there 
should  be  no  suggestion  even  of  a  line  of  action. 
The  bare  fact  which  he  had  become  possessed  of 
should  be  admitted,  and  he  should  be  left  to  deal 
with  It.  Upon  his  next  step  would  depend  Ander- 
son's;  that  was  all. 

But  Lady  Merton  ? 

Anderson  stared  across  the  near  valley,  up  the 
darkness  beyond,  where  lay  the  forests  of  the 
Yoho,  and  to  those  ethereal  summits  whence  a 
man  might  behold  on  one  side  the  smoke-wreaths 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       167 

of  the  great  railway,  and  on  the  other  side  the  still 
virgin  peaks  of  the  northern  Rockies,  untamed, 
untrodden.  But  his  eyes  were  holden;  he  saw 
neither  snow,  nor  forests,  and  the  roar  of  the 
stream  dashing  at  his  feet  was  unheard. 

Three  weeks,  was  it,  since  he  had  first  seen  that 
delicately  oval  face,  and  those  clear  eyes  ?  The 
strong  man  —  accustomed  to  hold  himself  in 
check,  to  guard  his  own  strength  as  the  instrument, 
firm  and  indispensable,  of  an  iron  wall  —  recoiled 
from  the  truth  he  was  at  last  compelled  to  recog- 
nise. In  this  daily  companionship  with  a  sensitive 
and  charming  woman,  endowed  beneath  her 
light  reserve  with  all  the  sweetness  of  unspoilt 
feeling,  while  yet  commanding  through  her  long 
training  in  an  old  society  a  thousand  delicacies 
and  subtleties,  which  played  on  Anderson's  fresh 
senses  like  the  breeze  on  young  leaves  —  whither 
had  he  been  drifting  —  to  the  brink  of  what 
precipice   had    he    brought   himself,    unknowing  ? 

He  stood  there  indefinitely,  among  the  charred 
tree-trunks  that  bordered  the  line,  his  arms 
folded,   looking  straight   before   him,   motionless. 

Supposing  to-day  had  been  yesterday,  need 
he  —  together  with  this  sting  of  passion  —  have 
felt  also  this  impotent  and  angry  despair  .?  Before 
his  eyes  had  seen  that  figure  lying  on  the  straw 
of  Mrs.  Ginnell's  outhouse,  could  he  ever  have 


i68       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

dreamed  it  possible  that  Elizabeth  Merton  should 
marry  him  ? 

Yes!  He  thought,  trembling  from  head  to 
foot,  of  that  expression  in  her  eyes  he  had  seen 
that  very  afternoon.  Again  and  again  he  had 
checked  his  feeling  by  the  harsh  reminder  of  her 
social  advantages.  But,  at  this  moment  of  crisis, 
the  man  in  him  stood  up,  confident  and  rebellious. 
He  knew  himself  sound,  intellectually  and  morally. 
There  was  a  career  before  him,  to  which  a  cool 
and  reasonable  ambition  looked  forward  without 
any  paralysing  doubts.  In  this  growing  Canada, 
measuring  himself  against  the  other  men  of  the 
moment,  he  calmly  foresaw  his  own  growing 
place.  As  to  money,  he  would  make  it;  he  was 
in  process  of  making  it,  honourably  and  suffi- 
ciently. 

He  was  well  aware  indeed  that  in  the  case  of 
many  women  sprung  from  the  English  governing 
class,  the  ties  that  bind  them  to  their  own  world, 
its  traditions,  and  its  outlook,  are  so  strong  that 
to  try  and  break  them  would  be  merely  to  invite 
disaster.  But  then  from  such  women  his  own 
pride  —  his  pride  in  his  country  —  would  have 
warned  his  passion.  It  was  to  Elizabeth's  lovely 
sympathy,  her  generous  detachment,  her  free  kind- 
ling mind  —  that  his  life  had  gone  out.  She 
would,  surely,  never  be  deterred  from  marrying 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       169 

a  Canadian  —  if  he  pleased  her  —  because  it 
would  cut  her  off  from  London  and  Paris,  and 
all  the  ripe  antiquities  and  traditions  of  English 
or  European  life  ?  Even  in  the  sparsely  peopled 
Northwest,  with  which  his  own  future  was 
bound  up,  how  many  English  women  are  there  — 
fresh,  some  of  them,  from  luxurious  and  fastidious 
homes  —  on  ranches,  on  prairie  farms,  in  the 
Okanagan  valley!  "This  Northwest  is  no  longer 
a  wilderness!"  he  proudly  thought;  "it  is  no 
longer  a  leap  in  the  dark  to  bring  a  woman  of 
delicate  nurture  and  cultivation  to  the  prairies." 

So,  only  a  few  hours  before,  he  might  have 
flattered  the  tyranny  of  longing  and  desire  which 
had  taken  hold  upon  him. 

But  now!  All  his  life  seemed  besmirched. 
His  passion  had  been  no  sooner  born  than,  Hke 
a  wounded  bird,  it  fluttered  to  the  ground.  Bring 
upon  such  a  woman  as  Elizabeth  Merton  the 
most  distant  responsibility  for  such  a  being  as 
he  had  left  behind  him  in  the  log-hut  at  Laggan  ? 
Link  her  life  in  however  remote  a  fashion  with 
that  life.?  Treachery  and  sacrilege,  indeed!  No 
need  for  Delaine  to  tell  him  that!  His  father  as 
a  grim  memory  of  the  past  —  that  Lady  Merton 
knew.  His  own  origins  —  his  own  story  —  as  to 
that  she  had  nothing  to  discover.  But  the  man 
who   might  have  dared  to  love  her,   up  to  that 


170       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

moment  in  the  hut,  was  now  a  slave,  bound  to  a 
corpse  — 

Fints! 

And  then  as  the  anguish  of  the  thought  swept 
through  him,  and  by  a  natural  transmission  of 
ideas,  there  rose  in  Anderson  the  sore  and  sudden 
memory  of  old,  unhappy  things,  of  the  tender 
voices  and  faces  of  his  first  youth.  The  ugly 
vision  of  his  degraded  father  had  brought  back 
upon  him,  through  a  thousand  channels  of  asso- 
ciation, the  recollection  of  his  mother.  He  saw 
her  now  —  the  worn,  roughened  face,  the  sweet 
swimming  eyes;  he  felt  her  arms  around  him, 
the  tears  of  her  long  agony  on  his  face.  She  had 
endured  —  he  too  must  endure.  Close,  close  — 
he  pressed  her  to  his  heart.  As  the  radiant  image 
of  EHzabeth  vanished  from  him  in  the  darkness, 
his  mother  —  broken,  despairing,  murdered  in 
her  youth  —  came  to  him  and  strengthened  him. 
Let  him  do  his  duty  to  this  poor  outcast,  as  she 
would  have  done  it  —  and  put  high  thoughts 
from  him. 

He  tore  himself  resolutely  from  his  trance  of 
thought,  and  began  to  walk  back  along  the  line. 
All  the  same,  he  would  go  up  to  Lake  Louise, 
as  he  had  promised,  on  the  following  morning. 
As  far  as  his  own  intention  was  concerned,  he 
would  not  cease  to  look  after  Lady  Merton  and  her 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       171 

brother;  Philip  Gaddesden  would  soon  have  to  be 
moved,  and  he  meant  to  escort  them  to  Vancouver. 

Sounds  approached,  from  the  distance  —  the 
''freight,"  with  the  doctor,  cHmbing  the  steep 
pass.  He  stepped  on  briskly  to  a  signal-man's 
cabin  and  made  arrangements  to  stop  the  train. 

It  was  towards  midnight  when  he  and  the 
doctor  emerged  from  the  Ginnell's  cabin. 

"Oh,  I  daresay  we'll  heal  those  cuts,"  said  the 
doctor.  "I've  told  Mrs.  Ginnell  what  to  do; 
but  the  old  fellow's  in  a  pretty  cranky  state.  I 
doubt  whether  he'll  trouble  the  world  very  long." 

Anderson  started.  With  his  eyes  on  the  ground 
and  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  he  inquired  the 
reason  for  this  opinion. 

"Arteries  —  first  and  foremost.  It's  a  wonder 
they've  held  out  so  long,  and  then  —  a  score  oi 
other  things.     What  can  you  expect?" 

The  speaker  went  into  some  details,  dis- 
cussing the  case  with  gusto.  A  miner  from 
Nevada  ?  Queer  hells  often,  those  mining  camps, 
whether  on  the  Canadian  or  the  American  side 
of  the  border. 

"You  were  acquainted  with  his  family  ?  Cana- 
dian, to  begin  with,  I  understand  ?" 

"Yes.  He  applied  to  me  for  help.  Did  he 
tell  you  much  about  himself?" 

"No.     He  boasted  a  lot  about  some  mine  in 


172       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

the  Comstock  district  which  is  to  make  his  fortune, 
if  he  can  raise  the  money  to  buy  it  up.  If  he  can 
raise  fifteen  thousand  dollars,  he  says,  he  wouldn't 
care  to  call  Rockefeller  his  lincle!" 

"That's  what  he  wants,  is  it  ?"  said  Anderson, 
absently,  "fifteen  thousand  dollars?" 

"Apparently.  Wish  he  may  get  it!"  laughed 
the  doctor.  "Well,  keep  him  from  drink,  if  you 
can.  But  I  doubt  if  you'll  cheat  the  undertaker 
very  long.  Good  night.  There'll  be  a  train 
along  soon  that'll  pick  me  up." 

Anderson  went  back  to  the  cabin,  found  that 
his  father  had  dropped  asleep,  left  money  and 
directions  with  Mrs.  Ginnell,  and  then  returned 
to  his  own  lodgings. 

He  sat  down  to  write  to  Delaine.  It  was  clear 
that,  so  far,  that  gentleman  and  Mrs.  Ginnell 
were  the  only  other  participants  in  the  secret  of 
McEwen's  identity.  The  old  man  had  not 
revealed  himself  to  the  doctor.  Did  that  mean 
that  —  in  spite  of  his  first  reckless  interview  with 
the  Englishman  —  he  had  still  some  notion  of  a 
bargain  with  his  son,  on  the  basis  of  the  fifteen 
thousand  dollars  ? 

Possibly.  But  that  son  had  still  to  determine 
his  own  fine  of  action.  When  at  last  he  began  to 
write,  he  wrote  steadily  and  without  a  pause. 
Nor  was  the  letter  long. 


CHAPTER  IX 

On  the  morning  following  his  conversation  with 
Anderson  on  the  Laggan  road,  Delaine  impa- 
tiently awaited  the  arrival  of  the  morning  mail 
from  Laggan.  When  it  came,  he  recognised 
Anderson's  handwriting  on  one  of  the  envelopes 
put  into  his  hand.  Elizabeth,  having  kept  him 
company  at  breakfast,  had  gone  up  to  sit  with 
Philip.  Nevertheless,  he  took  the  precaution  of 
carrying  the  letter  out  of  doors  to  read  it. 
It  ran  as  follows: 

"Dear  Mr.  Delaine — You  were  rightly 
informed,  and  the  man  you  saw  is  my  father.  I 
was  intentionally  deceived  ten  years  ago  by  a 
false  report  of  his  death.  Into  that,  however, 
I  need  not  enter.  If  you  talked  with  him,  as  I 
understand  you  did,  for  half  an  hour,  you  will,  I 
think,  have  gathered  that  his  life  has  been  unfor- 
tunately of  little  advantage  either  to  himself  or 
others.  But  that  also  is  my  personal  affair  — 
and  his.  And  although  in  a  moment  of  caprice, 
and  for  reasons  not  yet  plain  to  me,  he  revealed 

173 


174       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

himself  to  you,  he  appears  still  to  wish  to  preserve 
the  assumed  name  and  identity  that  he  set  up 
shortly  after  leaving  Manitoba,  seventeen  years 
ago.  As  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  am  inclined  to 
indulge  him.  But  you  will,  of  course,  take  your 
own  Hne,  and  will  no  doubt  communicate  it  to 
me.  I  do  not  imagine  that  my  private  affairs  or 
my  father's  can  be  of  any  interest  to  you,  but 
perhaps  I  may  say  that  he  is  at  present  for  a  few 
days  in  the  doctor's  hands  and  that  I  propose  as 
soon  as  his  health  is  re-established  to  arrange 
for  his  return  to  the  States,  where  his  home  has 
been  for  so  long.  I  am,  of  course,  ready  to  make 
any  arrangements  for  his  benefit  that  seem  wise, 
and  that  he  will  accept.  I  hope  to  come  up  to 
Lake  Louise  to-morrow,  and  shall  bring  with  me 
one  or  two  things  that  Lady  Merton  asked  me  to 
get  for  her.  Next  week  I  hope  she  may  be  able 
and  inclined  to  take  one  or  two  of  the  usual 
excursions  from  the  hotel,  if  Mr.  Gaddesden  goes 
on  as  well  as  we  all  expect.  I  could  easily  make 
the  necessary  arrangements  for  ponies,  guides,  &c. 
"Yours   faithfully, 

"George    Anderson." 

"Upon  my  word,  a  cool  hand!  a  very  cool 
hand!"  muttered  Delaine  in  some  perplexity,  as 
he  thrust  the  letter  into  his  pocket,  and  strolled  on 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       175 

toward  the  lake.  His  mind  went  back  to  the 
strange  nocturnal  encounter  which  had  led  to  the 
development  of  this  most  annoying  relation 
between  himself  and  Anderson.  He  recalled  the 
repulsive  old  man,  his  uneducated  speech,  the 
signs  about  him  of  low  cunning  and  drunken 
living,  his  rambling  embittered  charges  against 
his  son,  who,  according  to  him,  had  turned  his 
father  out  of  the  Manitoba  farm  in  consequence 
of  a  family  quarrel,  and  had  never  cared  since 
to  find  out  whether  he  was  alive  or  dead.  "Sorry 
to  trouble  you,  sir,  I'm  sure  —  a  genelman  like 
you"  —  obsequious  old  ruffian! — "but  my  sons 
were  always  kittle-cattle,  and  George  the  worst 
of  'em  all.  If  you  would  be  so  kind,  sir,  as  to 
gie  'im  a  word  o'  preparation " 

Delaine  could  hear  his  own  impatient  reply: 
"I  have  nothing  whatever,  sir,  to  do  with  your 
business!  Approach  Mr.  Anderson  yourself  if 
you  have  any  claim  to  make."  Whereupon  a 
half-sly,  half-threatening  hint  from  the  old  fellow 
that  he  might  be  disagreeable  unless  well  handled; 
that  perhaps  "the  lady"  would  listen  to  him  and 
plead  for  him  with  his  son. 

Lady  Alerton!  Good  heavens!  Delaine  had 
been  immediately  ready  to  promise  anything  in 
order  to  protect  her. 

Yet    even    now    the    situation    was    extremely 


176       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

annoying  and  improper.  Here  was  this  man, 
Anderson,  still  coming  up  to  the  hotel,  on  the 
most  friendly  terms  with  Lady  Merton  and  her 
brother,  managing  for  them,  laying  them  under 
obligations,  and  all  the  time,  unknown  to  Eliza- 
beth, with  this  drunken  old  scamp  of  a  father 
in  the  background,  who  had  already  half- 
threatened  to  molest  her,  and  would  be  quite 
capable,  if  thwarted,  of  blackmaihng  his  son 
through  his  English  friends! 

"What  can  I  do?"  he  said  to  himself,  in  dis- 
gust. "  I  have  no  right  whatever  to  betray  this 
man's  private  affairs;  at  the  same  time  I  should 
never  forgive  myself — Mrs.  Gaddesden  would 
never  forgive  me  —  if  I  were  to  allow  Lady  Merton 
to  run  any  risk  of  some  sordid  scandal  which 
might  get  into  the  papers.  Of  course  this  young 
man  ought  to  take  himself  off!  If  he  had  any 
proper  feeling  whatever  he  would  see  how  alto- 
gether unfitting  it  is  that  he,  with  his  antecedents, 
should  be  associating  in  this  very  friendly  way 
with  such  persons  as  Elizabeth  Merton  and  her 
brother!" 

Unfortunately  the  "association"  had  included 
the  rescue  of  Philip  from  the  water  of  Lake  Louise, 
and  the  provision  of  help  to  Elizabeth,  in  a  strange 
country,  which  she  could  have  ill  done  without. 
Philip's    unlucky    tumble    had    been,    certainly, 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       177 

doubly  unlucky,  if  it  was  to  be  the  means  of 
entangling  his  sister  further  in  an  intimacy  which 
ought  never  to  have  been  begun. 

And  yet  how  to  break  through  this  spider's  web  ? 
Delaine  racked  his  brain,  and  could  think  of 
nothing  better  than  delay  and  a  pusillanimous 
waiting  on  Providence.  Who  knew  what  mad 
view  Elizabeth  might  take  of  the  whole  thing,  in 
this  overstrained  sentimental  mood  which  had 
possessed  her  throughout  this  Canadian  journey  .'' 
The  young  man's  troubles  might  positively  recom- 
mend him  in  her  eyes! 

No!  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  stay  on  as 
an  old  friend  and  watchdog,  responsible,  at  least 

—  if  EHzabeth  would  have  none  of  his  counsels 

—  to  her  mother  and  kinsfolk  at  home,  who 
had  so  clearly  approved  his  advances  in  the 
winter,  and  would  certainly  blame  Elizabeth, 
on  her  return,  for  the  fact  that  his  long  journey 
had  been  fruitless.  He  magnanimously  resolved 
that  Lady  Merton  should  not  be  blamed  if  he 
could  help  it,  by  anyone  except  himself.  And 
he  had  no  intention  at  all  of  playing  the  rejected 
lover.  The  proud,  well-born,  fastidious  English- 
man stiffened  as  he  walked.  It  was  wounding  to 
his  self-love  to  stay  where  he  was;  since  it  was 
quite  plain  that  Elizabeth  could  do  without  him, 
and  would  not  regret  his  departure;  but  it  was 


178       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

no  less  wounding  to  be  dismissed,  as  it  were,  by 
Anderson.  He  would  not  be  dismissed;  he  would 
hold  his  own.  He  too  would  go  with  them  to 
Vancouver;  and  not  till  they  were  safely  in  charge 
of  the  Lieutenant-Governor  at  Victoria,  would  he 
desert  his   post. 

As  to  any  further  communication  to  Elizabeth, 
he  realised  that  the  hints  into  which  he  had  been 
so  far  betrayed  had  profited  neither  himself  nor 
her.  She  had  resented  them,  and  it  was  most 
unlikely  that  she  would  ask  him  for  any  further 
explanations;  and  that  being  so  he  had  better 
henceforward  hold  his  peace.  Unless  of  course 
any  further  annoyance  were  threatened. 

The  hotel  cart  going  down  to  Laggan  for 
supplies  at  midday  brought  Anderson  his  answer: 

"Dear  Mr.  Anderson  — Your  letter  gave  me 
great  concern.  I  deeply  sympathise  with  your 
situation.  As  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  must 
necessarily  look  at  the  matter  entirely  from  the 
point  of  view  of  my  fellow-travellers.  Lady 
Merton  must  not  be  distressed  or  molested.  So 
long,  however,  as  this  is  secured,  I  shall  not  feel 
myself  at  liberty  to  reveal  a  private  matter  which 
has  accidentally  come  to  my  knowledge.  I 
understand,  of  course,  that  your  father  will  not 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       179 

attempt  any  further  communication  with  me,  and 
I  propose  to  treat  the  interview  as  though  it  had 
not  happened. 

"I  will  give  Lady  Merton  your  message.  It 
seems  to  me  doubtful  whether  she  will  be  ready 
for  excursions  next  week.  But  you  are  no  doubt 
aware  that  the  hotel  makes  what  are  apparently 
very  excellent  and  complete  arrangements  for 
such  things.  I  am  sure  Lady  Merton  would  be 
sorry  to  give  you  avoidable  trouble.  However,  we 
shall  see  you  to-morrow,  and  shall  of  course  be 
very  glad  of  your  counsels. 

"Yours  faithfully, 
"Arthur  Mandeville  Delaine." 

Anderson's  fair  skin  flushed  scarlet  as  he  read 
this  letter.  He  thrust  it  into  his  pocket  and  con- 
tinued to  pace  up  and  down  in  the  patch  of  half- 
cleared  ground  at  the  back  of  the  Ginnells'  house. 
He  perfectly  understood  that  Delaine's  letter  was 
meant  to  warn  him  not  to  be  too  officious  in  Lady 
Merton's  service.  "Don't  suppose  yourself  indis- 
pensable —  and  don't  at  any  time  forget  your 
undesirable  antecedents,  and  compromising  situa- 
ation.     On  those  conditions,  I  hold  my  tongue." 

"Pompous  ass!"  Anderson  found  it  a  hard 
task  to  keep  his  own  pride  in  check.  It  was  of 
a  different  variety  from  Delaine's,  but  not  a  whit 


i8o       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

less  clamorous.  Yet  for  Lady  Merton's  sake 
it  was  desirable,  perhaps  imperative,  that  he 
should  keep  on  civil  terms  with  this  member  of 
her  party.  A  hot  impulse  swept  through  him  to 
tell  her  everything,  to  have  done  with  secrecy. 
But  he  stifled  it.  What  right  had  he  to  intrude 
his  personal  history  upon  her  ?  —  least  of  all  this 
ugly  and  unsavoury  development  of  it  ?  Pride 
spoke  again,  and  self-respect.  If  it  humiliated 
him  to  feel  himself  in  Delaine's  power,  he  must 
bear  it.  The  only  other  alternatives  were  either 
to  cut  himself  off^  at  once  from  his  English  friends 
—  that,  of  course,  was  what  Delaine  wished  — 
or  to  appeal  to  Lady  Merton's  sympathy  and 
pity.  Well,  he  would  do  neither  —  and  Delaine 
might  go  hang! 

Mrs.  Ginnell,  with  her  apron  over  her  head 
to  shield  her  from  a  blazing  sun,  appeared  at  the 
corner  of  the  house. 

"You're  wanted,   sir!"     Her  tone   was   sulky. 

"Anything  wrong?"  Anderson  turned 
apprehensively. 

"Nothing  more  than  'is  temper,  sir.  He  won't 
let  yer  rest,  do  what  you  will  for  'im." 

Anderson  went  into  the  house.  His  father  was 
sitting  up  in  bed.  Mrs.  Ginnell  had  been  endeav- 
ouring during  the  past  hour  to  make  her  patient 
clean  and  comfortable,  and  to  tidy  his  room;  but 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       i8i 

had  been  at  last  obliged  to  desist,  owing  to  the 
mixture  of  ill-humour  and  bad  language  with 
which  he  assailed  her. 

"Can  I  do  anything  for  you?"  Anderson 
inquired,  standing  beside  him. 

"Get  me  out  of  this  blasted  hole  as  soon  as 
possible!  That's  about  all  you  can  do!  I've 
told  that  woman  to  get  me  my  things,  and  help 
me  into  the  other  room  —  but  she's  in  your  pay, 
I  suppose.  She  won't  do  anything  I  tell  her,  drat 
her!" 

"The  doctor  left  orders  you  were  to  keep  quiet 
to-day." 

McEwen  vowed  he  would  do  nothing  of  the 
kind.  He  had  no  time  to  be  lolling  in  bed  like  a 
fine  lady.  He  had  business  to  do,  and  must  get 
home. 

"If  you  get  up,  with  this  fever  on  you,  and  the 
leg  in  that  state,  you  will  have  blood-poisoning," 
said  Anderson  quietly,  "which  will  either  kill 
you  or  detain  you  here  for  weeks.  You  say  you 
want  to  talk  business  with  me.  Well,  here  I  am. 
In  an  hour's  time  I  must  go  to  Calgary  for 
an  appointment.  Suppose  you  take  this 
opportunity." 

McEwen  stared  at  his  son.  His  blue  eyes, 
frowning  in  their  wrinkled  sockets,  gave  little  or 
no   index,   however,    to    the    mind    behind    them. 


i82       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

The  straggling  white  locks  falling  round  his 
blotched  and  feverish  face  caught  Anderson's 
attention.  Looking  back  thirty  years  he  could 
remember  his  father  vividly  —  a  handsome  man, 
solidly  built,  with  a  shock  of  fair  hair.  As  a 
little  lad  he  had  been  proud  to  sit  high-perched 
beside  him  on  the  wagon  which  in  summer  drove 
them,  every  other  Sunday,  to  a  meeting-house 
fifteen  miles  away.  He  could  see  his  mother  at 
the  back  of  the  wagon  with  the  little  girls,  her  grey 
alpaca  dress  and  cotton  gloves,  her  patient  look. 
His  throat  swelled.  Nor  was  the  pang  of  intoler- 
able pity  for  his  mother  only.  Deep  in  the  melan- 
choly of  his  nature  and  strengthened  by  that 
hateful  tie  of  blood  from  which  he  could  not  escape, 
was  a  bitter,  silent  compassion  for  this  outcast 
also.  All  the  machinery  of  life  set  in  motion  and 
maintaining  itself  in  the  clash  of  circumstance  for 
seventy  years  to  produce  this,  at  the  end!  Dismal 
questionings  ran  through  his  mind.  Ought  he 
to  have  acted  as  he  had  done  seventeen  years 
before .?  How  would  his  mother  have  judged 
him .?  Was  he  not  in  some  small  degree 
responsible } 

Meanwhile  his  father  began  to  talk  fast  and 
querulously,  with  plentiful  oaths  from  time  to 
time,  and  using  a  local  miner's  slang  which  was 
not  always  intelligible  to  Anderson.     It  seemed  it 


LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST       183 

was  a  question  of  an  old  silver  mine  on  a  mountain- 
side in  Idaho,  deserted  some  ten  years  before 
when  the  river  gravels  had  been  exhausted,  and 
now  to  be  reopened,  Hke  many  others  in  the  same 
neighbourhood,  with  improved  methods  and 
machinery,  tunnelHng  instead  of  washing.  Silver 
enough  to  pave  Montreal!  Ten  thousand  dollars 
for  plant,  five  thousand  for  the  claim,  and  the 
thing  was  done. 

He  became  incoherently  eloquent,  spoke  of  the 
ease  and  rapidity  with  which  the  thing  could  be 
resold  to  a  syndicate  at  an  enormous  profit, 
should  his  "pardners"  and  he  not  care  to  develop 
it  themselves.  If  George  would  find  the  money 
—  why,  George  should  make  his  fortune,  like  the 
rest,  though  he  had  behaved  so  scurvily  all  these 
years. 

Anderson  watched  the  speaker  intently.  Pres- 
ently he  began  to  put  questions  —  close,  technical 
questions.  His  father's  eyes  —  till  then  eager 
and  greedy  —  began  to  flicker.  Anderson  per- 
ceived   an    unwelcome    surprise  —  annoyance  — 

"You  knew,  of  course,  that  I  was  a  mining 
engineer.'*"  he  said  at  last,  pulling  up  in  his 
examination. 

"Well,  I  heard  of  you  that  onst  at  Dawson 
City,"  was  the  slow  reply.  "  I  supposed  you  were 
nosin'   round   like  the  rest." 


i84       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

"Why,  I  didn't  go  as  a  mere  prospector!  I'd 
had  my  training  at  Montreal."  And  Anderson 
resumed  his  questions. 

But  McEwen  presently  took  no  pains  to  answer 
them.  He  grew  indeed  less  and  less  communica- 
tive. The  exact  locality  of  the  mine,  the  names 
of  the  partners,  the  precise  machinery  required  — 
Anderson,  in  the  end,  could  get  at  neither  the  one 
nor  the  other.  And  before  many  more  minutes 
had  passed  he  had  convinced  himself  that  he  was 
wasting  his  time.  That  there  was  some  swindling 
plot  in  his  father's  mind  he  was  certain;  he  was 
probably  the  tool  of  some  shrewder  confederates, 
who  had  no  doubt  sent  him  to  Montreal  after  his 
legacy,  and  would  fleece  him  on  his  return. 

*'  By  the  way.  Aunt  Sykes's  money,  how  much 
was  it.?"  Anderson  asked  him  suddenly.  "I 
suppose  you  could  draw  on  that?" 

McEwen  could  not  be  got  to  give  a  plain  answer. 
It  wasn't  near  enough,  anyhov/;  not  near.  The 
evasion  seemed  to  Anderson  purposeless;  the 
mere  shifting  and  doubling  that  comes  of  long 
years  of  dishonest  living.  And  again  the  ques- 
tion stabbed  his  consciousness  —  were  his  children 
justified  in  casting  him  so  inexorably  adrift  ? 

"Well,  I'd  better  run  down  and  have  a  look," 
he  said  at  last.  "  If  it's  a  good  thing  I  dare  say 
I  can  find  you  the  dollars." 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       185 

"Run  down  —  where?"  asked  McEwen 
sharply. 

"To  the  mine,  of  course.  I  might  spare  the 
time  next  week." 

"No  need  to  trouble  yourself.  My  pardners 
wouldn't  thank  me  for  betraying  their  secrets." 

"Well,  you  couldn't  expect  me  to  provide  the 
money  without  knowing  a  bit  more  about  the 
property,  could  you  .? —  without  a  regular  survey  r" 
said  Anderson,  with  a  laugh. 

"You  trust  me  with  three  or  four  thousand 
dollars,'*  said  McEwen  doggedly  —  "  because  I'm 
your  father  and  I  give  you  my  word.  And  if  not, 
you  can  let  it  alone.  I  don't  want  any  prying 
into  my  affairs." 

Anderson  was  silent  a  moment. 

Then  he  raised  his  eyes. 

"Are  you  sure  it's  all  square  ^'*  The  tone  had 
sharpened. 

"Square?  Of  course  it  is.  What  are  you 
aiming  at  ?  You'll  believe  any  villainy  of  your 
old  father,  I  suppose,  just  the  same  as  you  always 
used  to.  I've  not  had  your  opportunities,  George. 
I'm  not  a  fine  j^entleman  —  on  the  trail  with  a 
parcel  of  English  swells.  I'm  a  poor  old  broken- 
down  miner,  who  wants  to  hole-up  somewhere, 
and  get  comfortable  for  his  old  age;  and  if  you 
had  a  heart  in  your  body,  you'd  lend  a  helping 


1 86       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

hand.  When  I  saw  you  at  Winnipeg" — the 
tone  became  a  trifle  plaintive  and  sHppery  — 
"I  ses  to  myself,  George  used  to  be  a  nice  chap, 
with  a  good  heart.  If  there's  anyone  ought  to 
help  me  it's  my  own  son.  And  so  I  boarded  that 
train.  But  I'm  a  broken  man,  George,  and  you've 
used  me  hard." 

*'  Better  not  talk  like  that,"  interrupted  Ander- 
son in  a  clear,  resolute  voice.  "It  won't  do  any 
good.  Look  here,  father!  Suppose  you  give  up 
this  kind  of  life,  and  settle  down.  I'm  ready  to 
give  you  an  allowance,  and  look  after  you.  Your 
health  is  bad.  To  speak  the  truth,  this  mine 
business  sounds  to  me  pretty  shady.  Cut  it  all! 
I'll  put  you  with  decent  people,  who'll  look  after 
you. 

The  eyes  of  the  two  men  met;  Anderson's 
insistently  bright,  McEwen's  wavering  and  frown- 
ing. The  June  sunshine  came  into  the  small 
room  through  a  striped  and  battered  blind, 
illuminating  the  rough  planks  of  which  it  was 
built,  the  "cuts"  from  illustrated  papers  that 
were  pinned  upon  them,  the  scanty  furniture,  and 
the  untidy  bed.  Anderson's  head  and  shoulders 
were  in  a  full  mellowed  light;  he  held  himself  with 
an  unconscious  energy,  answering  to  a  certain 
force  of  feeling  within;  a  proud  strength  and 
sincerity  expressed  itself  through  every  detail  of 


LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST       187 

attitude  and  gesture;  yet  perhaps  the  delicacy, 
or  rather  sensibiHty,  mingling  with  the  pride, 
would  have  been  no  less  evident  to  a  seeing  eye. 
There  was  Highland  blood  in  him,  and  a  touch 
therefore  of  the  Celtic  responsiveness,  the  Celtic 
magnetism.  The  old  man  opposite  to  him  in 
shadow,  with  his  back  to  the  light,  had  a 
crouching  dangerous  look.  It  was  as  though  he 
recognised  something  in  his  son  for  ever  lost  to 
himself;  and  repulsed  it,  half  enviously,  half 
malignantly. 

But  he  did  not  apparently  resent  Anderson's 
proposal.  He  said  sulkily:  "Oh,  I  dessay  you'd 
like  to  put  me  away.  But  I'm  not  doddering 
yet. 

All  the  same  he  listened  in  silence  to  the  plan 
that  Anderson  developed,  puffing  the  while  at  the 
pipe  which  he  had  made  Mrs.  Ginnell  give  him. 

"I  shan't  stay  on  this  side,"  he  said,  at  last, 
decidedly.  "There's  a  thing  or  two  that  might 
turn  up  agin  me  —  and  fellows  as  'ud  do  me  a 
bad  turn  if  they  come  across  me  — dudes,  as  I  used 
to  know  in  Dawson  City.  I  shan't  stay  in  Canada. 
You  can  make  up  your  mind  to  that.  Besides,  the 
winter  'ud  kill  me!" 

Anderson  accordingly  proposed  San  Francisco, 
or  Los  Angeles.  Would  his  father  go  for  a  time 
to  a  Salvation  Army  colony  near  Los  Angeles  ? 


i88       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

Anderson  knew  the  chief  officials  —  capital  men, 
with  no  cant  about  them.  Fruit  farming  —  a 
beautiful  climate  —    care  in  sickness  —  no  drink 

—  as  much  work  or  as  little  as  he  liked  —  and  all 
expenses  paid. 

McEwen   laughed   out  —  a   short   sharp   laugh 

—  at  the  mention  of  the  Salvation  Army.  But  he 
listened  patiently,  and  at  the  end  even  professed 
to  think  there  might  be  something  in  it.  As  to  his 
own  scheme,  he  dropped  all  mention  of  it.  Yet 
Anderson  was  under  no  illusion;  there  it  lay 
sparkling,  as  it  were,  at  the  back  of  his  sly  wolfish 
eyes. 

"How  in  blazes  could  you  take  me  down?" 
muttered  McEwen  —  "Thought  you  was  took  up 
with    these    English    swells." 

"I'm  not  taken  up  with  anything  that  would 
prevent  my  looking  after  you,"  said  Anderson 
rising.  "You  let  Mrs.  Ginnell  attend  to  you  — 
get  the  leg  well  —  and  we'll  see." 

McEwen  eyed  him  —  his  good  looks  and  his 
dress,  his  gentleman's  refinement;  and  the  shaggy 
white  brows  of  the  old  miner  drew  closer  together. 

"What  did  you  cast  me  off  like  that  for, 
George .?"  he  asked. 

Anderson  turned  away. 

"Don't  rake  up  the  past.     Better  not." 

"Where   are  my  other  sons,   George.'*" 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       189 

"In  Montreal,  doing  well."  Anderson  gave 
the  details  of  their  appointments  and  salaries. 

"And  never  a  thought  of  their  old  father,  I'll 
be  bound!"  said  McEwen,  at  the  end,  with  slow 
vindictiveness. 

"You  forget  that  it  was  your  own  doing;  we 
believed  you  dead." 

"Aye!  —  you  hadn't  left  a  man  much  to  come 
home  for!  —  and  all  for  an  accident!  —  a  thing 
as  might  ha'  happened  to  any  man." 

The  speaker's  voice  had  grown  louder.  He 
stared  sombrely,  defiantly  at  his  companion. 

Anderson  stood  with  his  hands  on  his  sides, 
looking  through  the  further  window.  Then  slowly 
he  put  his  hand  into  his  pocket  and  withdrew 
from  it  a  large  pocket-book.  Out  of  the  pocket- 
book  he  took  a  delicately  made  leather  case,  hold- 
ing it  in  his  hand  a  moment,  and  glancing  uncer- 
tainly at  the  figure  in  the  bed. 

"What  ha'  you  got  there  V'  growled  McEwen. 

Anderson  crossed  the  room.  His  own  face  had 
lost  its  colour.  As  he  reached  his  father,  he 
touched  a  spring,  and  held  out  his  hand  with  the 
case  lying  open  within  it. 

It  contained  a  miniature  —  of  a  young  woman 
in  the  midst  of  a  group  of  children. 

"Do  you  remember  that  photograph  that  was 
done  of  them  —  in  a  tent  —  when  you  took  us  all 


I90       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

into  Winnipeg  for  the  first  agricultural  show?" 
he  said  hoarsely.  "I  had  a  copy  —  that  wasn't 
burnt.  At  Montreal,  there  was  a  French  artist  one 
year,  that  did  these  things.     I  got  him  to  do  this." 

McEwen  stared  at  the  miniature  —  the  sweet- 
faced  Scotch  woman,  the  bunch  of  children. 
Then  with  a  brusque  movement  he  turned  his 
face  to  the  wall,  and  closed  his  eyes. 

Anderson's  lips  opened  once  or  twice  as  though 
to  speak.  Some  imperious  emotion  seemed  to 
be  trying  to  force  its  way.  But  he  could  not 
find  words;  and  at  last  he  returned  the  miniature 
to  his  pocket,  walked  quietly  to  the  door,  and 
went  out  of  the  room. 

The  sound  of  the  closing  door  brought  immense 
relief  to  McEwen.  He  turned  again  in  bed,  and 
relit  his  pipe,  shaking  off  the  impression  left  by 
the  miniature  as  quickly  as  possible.  What 
business  had  George  to  upset  him  like  that } 
He  was  down  enough  on  his  luck  as  it  was. 

He  smoked  away,  gloomily  thinking  over  the 
conversation.  It  didn't  look  like  getting  any 
money  out  of  this  close-fisted  Puritanical  son  of 
his.  Survey  indeed!  McEwen  found  himself 
shaken  by  a  kind  of  internal  convulsion  as  he 
thought  of  the  revelations  that  would  come  out. 
George  was  a  fool. 


LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST       191 

In  his  feverish  reverie,  many  lines  of  thought 
crossed  and  danced  in  his  brain;  and  every  now 
and  then  he  v^^as  tormented  by  the  craving  for 
alcohol.  The  Salvation  Army  proposal  half 
amused,  half  infuriated  him.  He  knew  all  about 
their  colonies.  Trust  him!  Your  own  master 
for  seventeen  years  —  mixed  up  in  a  lot  of  jobs 
it  wouldn't  do  to  go  blabbing  to  the  Mounted 
Police  —  and  then  to  finish  up  with  those  hymn- 
singing  fellows!  —  George  was  most  certainly  a 
fool!  Yet  dollars  ought  to  be  screwed  out  of  him 
- —  somehow. 

Presently,  to  get  rid  of  some  unpleasant  reflec- 
tions, the  old  man  stretched  out  his  hand  for  a 
copy  of  the  Vancouver  Sentinel  that  was  lying  on 
the  bed,  and  began  to  read  it  idly.  As  he  did  so, 
a  paragraph  drew  his  attention.  He  gripped 
the  paper,  and,  springing  up  in  bed,  read  it  twice, 
peering  into  it,  his  features  quivering  with  eager- 
ness. The  passage  described  the  "hold  up"  of  a 
Northern  Pacific  train,  at  a  point  between  Seattle 
and  the  Canadian  border.  By  the  help  of  masks, 
and  a  few  sticks  of  dynamite,  the  thing  had  been 
very  smartly  done  —  a  whole  train  terrorised,  the 
mail  van  broken  open  and  a  large  "swag"  cap- 
tured. Billy  Symonds,  the  notorious  train  robber 
from  Montana,  was  suspected,  and  there  was 
a  hue  and  cry  through  the  whole  border  after  him 


192       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

and  his  accomplices,  amongst  whom,  so  it  was 
said,  was  a  band  from  the  Canadian  side  —  foreign 
miners  mixed  up  in  some  of  the  acts  of  violence 
which  had  marked  the  strike  of  the  year  before. 

Bill  Symonds!  —  McEwen  threw  himself 
excitedly  from  side  to  side,  unable  to  keep  still. 
He  knew  Symonds  —  a  chap  and  a  half!  Why 
didn't  he  come  and  try  it  on  this  side  of  the  line  .? 
Heaps  of  money  going  backwards  and  forwards 
over  the  railway!  All  these  thousands  of  dollars 
paid  out  in  wages  week  by  week  to  these  con- 
struction camps  —  must  come  from  somewhere 
in  cash  —  Winnipeg  or  Montreal.  He  began 
to  play  with  the  notion,  elaborating  and  refining 
it;  till  presently  a  whole  epic  of  attack  and  capture 
was  rushing  through  his  half-crazy  brain. 

He  had  dropped  the  paper,  and  was  staring 
abstractedly  through  the  foot  of  open  window 
close  beside  him,  which  the  torn  blind  did  not 
cover.  Outside,  through  the  clearing  with  its 
stumps  of  jack-pine,  ran  a  path,  a  short  cut,  con- 
necting the  station  at  Laggan  with  a  section- 
house  further  up  the  line. 

As  McEwen's  eyes  followed  it,  he  began  to  be 
aware  of  a  group  of  men  emerging  from  the  trees 
on  the  Laggan  side,  and  walking  in  single  file 
along  the  path.  Navvies  apparently  —  carrying 
bundles    and    picks.     The    path    came   within    a 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       193 

few  yards  of  the  window,  and  of  the  little  stream 
that  supplied  the  house  with  water. 

Suddenly,  McEwen  sprang  up  in  bed.  The 
two  foremost  men  paused  beside  the  water, 
mopped  their  hot  faces,  and  taking  drinking  cups 
out  of  their  pockets  stooped  down  to  the  stream. 
The  old  man  in  the  cabin  bed  watched  them  with 
fierce  intentness;  and  as  they  straightened  them- 
selves and  were  about  to  follow  their  companions 
who  were  already  out  of  sight,  he  gave  a  low  call. 

The  two  started  and  looked  round  them.  Their 
hands  went  to  their  pockets.  McEwen  swung 
himself  round  so  as  to  reach  the  window  better, 
and  repeated  his  call  —  this  time  with  a  different 
inflection.  The  men  exchanged  a  few  hurried 
words.  Carefully  scrutinising  the  house,  they 
noticed  a  newspaper  waving  cautiously  in  an  open 
window.  One  of  them  came  forward,  the  other 
remained  by  the  stream  bathing  his  feet  and  ankles 
in  the  water. 

No  one  else  was  in  sight.  Mrs.  Ginnell  was 
cookinjr  on  the  other  side  of  the  house.  Anderson 
had  gone  oflF  to  catch  his  train.  For  twenty  min- 
utes, the  man  outside  leant  against  the  window- 
sash  apparently  lounging  and  smoking.  Nothing 
could  be  seen  from  the  path,  but  a  battered  blind 
flapping  in  the  June  breeze,  and  a  dark  space 
of  room  beyond. 


CHAPTER  X 

The  days  passed  on.  Philip  in  the  comfortable 
hotel  at  Lake  Louise  was  recovering  steadily, 
though  not  rapidly,  from  the  general  shock  of 
immersion.  Elizabeth,  while  nursing  him  tenderly, 
could  yet  find  time  to  walk  and  climb,  plung- 
ing spirit  and  sense  in  the  beauty  of  the 
Rockies. 

On  these  excursions  Delaine  generally  accom- 
panied her;  and  she  bore  it  well.  Secretly  she 
cherished  some  astonishment  and  chagrin  that 
Anderson  could  be  with  them  so  little  on  these 
bright  afternoons  among  the  forest  trails  and 
upper  lakes,  although  she  generally  found  that 
the  plans  of  the  day  had  been  suggested  and 
organised  by  him,  by  telephone  from  Laggan, 
to  the  kind  and  competent  Scotch  lady  who  was 
the  manager  of  the  hotel.  It  seemed  to  her  that 
he  had  promised  his  company;  whereas,  as  a 
rule,  now  he  withheld  it;  and  her  pride  was  put 
to  it,  on  her  own  part,  not  to  betray  any  sign  of 
discontent.  He  spoke  vaguely  of  "business," 
and  on  one  occasion,   apparently  had    gone    off 

194 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       195 

for  three  days  to  Saskatchewan  on  matters  con- 
nected with  the  coming  general  election. 

From  the  newspaper,  or  the  talk  of  visitors 
in  the  hotel,  or  the  railway  officials  who  occasion- 
ally found  their  way  to  Lake  Louise  to  make 
courteous  inquiries  after  the  English  party,  Eliza- 
beth became,  indeed,  more  and  more  fully  aware 
of  the  estimation  in  which  Anderson  was  beginning 
to  be  held.  He  was  already  a  personage  in  the 
Northwest;  was  said  to  be  sure  of  success  in  his 
contest  at  Donaldminster,  and  of  an  immediate 
Parliamentary  career  at  Ottawa.  These  proph- 
ecies seemed  to  depend  more  upon  the  man's 
character  than  his  actual  achievements;  though, 
indeed,  the  story  of  the  great  strike,  as  she  had 
gathered  it  once  or  twice  from  the  lips  of  eye- 
witnesses, was  a  fine  one.  For  weeks  he  had 
carried  his  life  in  his  hand  among  thousands  of 
infuriated  navvies  and  miners  —  since  the  miners 
had  made  common  cause  with  the  railwaymen  — 
with  a  cheerfulness,  daring,  and  resource  which 
in  the  end  had  wrung  success  from  an  apparently 
hopeless  situation;  a  success  attended,  when  all 
was  over,  by  an  amazing  effusion  of  good  will 
among  both  masters  and  men,  especially  towards 
Anderson  himself,  and  a  general  improvement  in 
the  industrial  temper  and  atmosphere  of  the 
Northwest. 


196       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

The  recital  of  these  things  stirred  Elizabeth's 
pulses.  But  why  did  she  never  hear  them  from 
himself?  Surely  he  had  offered  her  friendship, 
and  the  rights  of  friendship.  How  else  could 
he  justify  the  scene  at  Field,  when  he  had  so 
brusquely  probed  her  secret  anxieties  for  Philip  ,? 
Her  pride  rebelled  when  she  thought  of  it,  when 
she  recalled  her  wet  eyes,  her  outstretched  hand. 
Mere  humiliation! — in  the  case  of  a  casual  or 
indifferent  acquaintance.  No;  on  that  day, 
certainly,  he  had  claimed  the  utmost  privileges, 
had  even  strained  the  rights,  of  a  friend,  a  real 
friend.  But  his  behaviour  since  had  almost 
revived  her  first  natural  resentment. 

Thoughts  like  these  ran  in  her  mind,  and  occa- 
sionally affected  her  manner  when  they  did  meet. 
Anderson  found  her  more  reserved,  and  noticed 
that  she  did  not  so  often  ask  him  for  small  services 
as  of  old.  He  suffered  under  the  change;  but 
it  was,  he  knew,  his  own  doing,  and  he  did  not 
alter  his  course. 

Whenever  he  did  come,  he  sat  mostly  with 
Philip,  over  whom  he  had  gradually  established 
a  remarkable  influence,  not  by  any  definite  acts 
or  speeches,  but  rather  by  the  stoicism  of  his  own 
mode  of  life,  coupled  with  a  proud  or  laughing 
contempt  for  certain  vices  and  self-indulgences 
to  which  it  was  evident  that  he  himself  felt  no 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       197 

temptation.  As  soon  as  Philip  felt  himself  suffi- 
ciently at  home  with  the  Canadian  to  begin  to 
jibe  at  his  teetotalism,  Anderson  seldom  took  the 
trouble  to  defend  himself;  yet  the  passion  of 
moral  independence  in  his  nature,  of  loathing 
for  any  habit  that  weakens  and  enslaves  the  will, 
infected  the  English  lad  whether  he  would  or  no. 
"There's  lots  of  things  he's  stick-stock  mad  on," 
Philip  would  say  impatiently  to  his  sister.  But 
the  madness  told.  And  the  madman  was  all 
the  while  consolingly  rich  in  other,  and,  to  Philip, 
more  attractive  kinds  of  madness  —  the  follies 
of  the  hunter  and  climber,  of  the  man  who  holds 
his  neck  as  dross  in  comparison  with  the  satis- 
faction of  certain  wild  instincts  that  the  Rockies 
excite  in  him.  Anderson  had  enjoyed  his  full 
share  of  adventures  with  goat  and  bear.  Such 
things  are  the  customary  amusements,  it  seemed, 
of  a  young  engineer  in  the  Rockies.  Beside  them, 
English  covert-shooting  is  a  sport  for  babes;  and 
Philip  ceased  to  boast  of  his  own  prowess  in  that 
direction.  He  would  listen,  indeed,  open-mouthed, 
to  Anderson's  yarns,  lying  on  his  long  chair  on 
the  verandah  —  a  graceful  languid  figure  —  with 
a  coyote  rug  heaped  about  him.  It  was  clear  to 
Elizabeth  that  Anderson  on  his  side  had  become 
very  fond  of  the  boy.  There  was  no  trouble  he 
would  not  take  for  him.     And  gradually,  silently. 


igS       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

proudly,  she  allowed  him  to  take  less  and  less 
for  herself. 

Once  or  twice  Arthur  Delaine's  clumsy  hints 
occurred  to  her.  Was  there,  indeed,  some  private 
matter  weighing  on  the  young  man's  mind  I  She 
would  not  allow  herself  to  speculate  upon  it; 
though  she  could  not  help  watching  the  relation 
between  the  two  men  with  some  curiosity.  It 
was  polite  enough;  but  there  was  certainly  no 
cordiality  in  it;  and  once  or  twice  she  suspected 
a  hidden  understanding. 

Delaine  meanwhile  felt  a  kind  of  dull  satis- 
faction in  the  turn  of  events.  The  intimacy 
between  Anderson  and  Lady  Merton  had  clearly 
been  checked,  or  was  at  least  not  advancing. 
Whether  it  was  due  to  his  own  hints  to  Elizabeth, 
or  to  Anderson's  chivalrous  feeling,  he  did  not 
know.  But  he  wrote  every  mail  to  Mrs.  Gaddes- 
den,  discreetly,  yet  not  without  giving  her  some 
significant  information;  he  did  whatever  small 
services  were  possible  in  the  case  of  a  man  who 
went  about  Canada  as  a  Johnny  Head-in-air, 
with  his  mind  in  another  hemisphere;  and  it  was 
understood  that  he  was  to  leave  them  at  Van- 
couver. In  the  forced  association  of  their  walks 
and  rides,  Elizabeth  showed  herself  gay,  kind, 
companionable;  although  often,  and  generally 
for  no  reason  that  he  could  discover,  something 


LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST       199 

sharp  and  icy  in  her  would  momentarily  make 
itself  felt,  and  he  would  find  himself  driven  back 
within  bounds  that  he  had  perhaps  been  tempted 
to  transgress.  And  the  result  of  it  all  was  that 
he  fell  day  by  day  more  tormentingly  in  love  with 
her.  Those  placid  matrimonial  ambitions  with 
which  he  had  left  England  had  been  all  swept 
away;  and  as  he  followed  her  —  she  on  pony- 
back,  he  on  foot  —  along  the  mountain  trails, 
watching  the  lightness  of  her  small  figure  against 
the  splendid  background  of  peak  and  pine,  he 
became  a  troubled,  introspective  person;  con- 
centrating upon  himself  and  his  disagreeable 
plight  the  attention  he  had  hitherto  given  to  a 
delightful  outer  world,  sown  with  the  caches  of 
antiquity,  in  order  to  amuse  him. 

Meanwhile  the  situation  in  the  cabin  at  Laggan 
appeared  to  be  steadily  improving.  McEwen 
had  abruptly  ceased  to  be  a  rebellious  and  difficult 
patient.  The  doctor's  orders  had  been  obeyed; 
the  leg  had  healed  rapidly;  and  he  no  longer 
threatened  or  cajoled  Mrs.  Ginnell  on  the  subject 
of  liquor.  As  far  as  Anderson  was  concerned, 
he  was  generally  sulky  and  uncommunicative. 
But  Anderson  got  enough  out  of  him  by  degrees 
to  be  able  to  form  a  fairly  complete  idea  of  his 
father's  course  of  life  since  the  false  report  of  his 
death   in   the  Yukon.     He  realised   an  existence 


200       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

on  the  fringe  of  civilisation,  with  its  strokes  of 
luck  neutralised  by  drink,  and  its  desperate,  and 
probably  criminal,  moments.  And  as  soon  as 
his  father  got  well  enough  to  limp  along  the  trails 
of  the  Laggan  valley,  the  son  noticed  incidents 
which  appeared  to  show  that  the  old  man,  while 
playing  the  part  of  the  helpless  stranger,  was  by 
no  means  without  acquaintance  among  the  motley 
host  of  workmen  that  were  constantly  passing 
through.  The  links  of  international  trades  union- 
ism  no  doubt  accounted  for  it.  But  in  McEwen's 
case,  the  fraternity  to  which  he  belonged  seemed 
to  apply  only  to  the  looser  and  more  disreputable 
elements  among  the  emigrant  throng. 

But  at  the  same  time  he  had  shown  surprising 
docility  in  the  matter  of  Anderson's  counsels. 
All  talk  of  the  Idaho  mine  had  dropped  between 
them,  as  though  by  common  consent.  Anderson 
had  laid  hands  upon  a  young  man,  a  Salvation 
Army  officer  in  Vancouver,  with  whom  his  father 
consented  to  lodge  for  the  next  six  weeks;  and 
further  arrangements  were  to  be  postponed  till 
the  end  of  that  period.  Anderson  hoped,  indeed, 
to  get  his  father  settled  there  before  Lady  Merton 
moved  from  Lake  Louise.  For  in  a  few  days 
now,  the  private  car  was  to  return  from  the  coast, 
in  order  to  take  up  the  English  party. 

McEwen's  unexpected   complaisance  led   to  a 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       2or 

great  softening  in  Anderson's  feeling  towards  his 
father.  All  those  inner  compunctions  that  haunt 
a  just  and  scrupulous  nature  came  freely  into 
play.  And  his  evangelical  religion  —  for  he  was 
a  devout  though  liberal-minded  Presbyterian  — 
also  entered  in.  Was  it  possible  that  he  might 
be  the  agent  of  his  father's  redemption  ?  The 
idea,  the  hope,  produced  in  him  occasional  hidden 
exaltations  —  flights  of  prayer  —  mystical  memo- 
ries of  his  mother  —  which  lightened  what  was 
otherwise  a  time  of  bitter  renunciation,  and 
determined  wrestling  with  himself. 

During  the  latter  days  of  this  fortnight,  indeed, 
he  could  not  do  enough  for  his^father.  He  had  made 
all  the  Vancouver  arrangements;  he  had  supplied 
him  amply  with  clothes  and  other  personal  neces- 
saries; and  he  came  home  early  at  night  in  order 
to  sit  and  smoke  with  him.  Mrs.  Ginnell,  looking 
in  of  an  evening,  beheld  what  seemed  to  her  a 
touching  sight,  though  one  far  beyond  the  deserts 
of  such  creatures  as  McEwen  —  the  son  reading 
the  newspaper  aloud,  or  playing  dominoes  with 
his  father,  or  just  smoking  and  chatting.  Her 
hard  common  sense  as  a  working-woman  suggested 
to  her  that  Anderson  w^as  nursing  illusions;  and 
she  scornfully  though  silently  hoped  that  the 
"old  rip"  would  soon,  one  way  or  another,  be 
off  his  shoulders. 


202       LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST 

But  the  illusions,  for  the  moment,  were  Ander- 
son's sustenance.  His  imagination,  denied  a 
more  personal  and  passionate  food,  gave  itself 
with  fire  to  the  redeeming  of  an  outlaw,  and  the 
paying  of  a  spiritual  debt. 

It  was  Wednesday.  After  a  couple  of  drizzling 
days  the  weather  was  again  fair.  The  trains 
rolling  through  the  pass  began  with  these  early 
days  of  July  to  bring  a  first  crop  of  holiday- 
makers  from  Eastern  Canada  and  the  States; 
the  hotels  were  filling  up.  On  the  morrow 
McEwen  was  to  start  for  Vancouver.  And  a 
letter  from  Philip  Gaddesden,  delivered  at  Laggan 
in  the  morning,  had  bitterly  reproached  Anderson 
for  neglecting  them,  and  leaving  him,  in  particular, 
to  be   bored   to   death   by  glaciers   and   tourists. 

Early  in  the  afternoon  Anderson  took  his  way 
up  the  mountain  road  to  Lake  Louise.  He  found 
the  English  travellers  established  among  the  pines 
by  the  lake-side,  Philip  half  asleep  in  a  hammock 
strung  between  two  pines,  while  Delaine  was 
reading  to  Elizabeth  from  an  article  in  an  arch- 
aeological review  on  "Some  Fresh  Light  on  the 
Cippus  of  Palestrina." 

Lady  Merton  was  embroidering;  it  seemed  to 
Anderson  that  she  was  tired  or  depressed. 
Delaine's  booming  voice,  and  the  frequent  Latin 
passages   interspersed   with   stammering   transla- 


LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST       203 

tions  of  his  own,  in  which  he  appeared  to  be 
interminably  tangled,  would  be  enough  —  the 
Canadian  thought  —  to  account  for  a  subdued 
demeanour;  and  there  was,  moreover,  a  sudden 
thunderous  heat  in  the  afternoon. 

Elizabeth  received  him  a  little  stiffly,  and  Philip 
roused  himself  from  sleep  only  to  complain: 
"You've  been  four  mortal  days  without  coming 


near  us!" 


"I  had  to  go  away.     I  have  been  to  Regina." 

"On  politics?"    asked  Delaine. 

"Yes.     We  had   a   couple   of  meetings   and   a 


row." 


"Jolly  for  you!"  grumbled  Philip.  "Butwe've 
had  a  beastly  time.     Ask  Elizabeth." 

"Nothing  but  the  weather!"  said  Elizabeth 
carelessly.  "We  couldn't  even  see  the  moun- 
tarns. 

But  why,  as  she  spoke,  should  the  delicate 
cheek  change  colour,  suddenly  and  brightly  t 
The  answering  blood  leapt  in  Anderson.  She 
had  missed  him,  though  she  would  not  show  it. 

Delaine  began  to  question  him  about  Sas- 
katchewan. The  Englishman's  forms  of  con 
versation  were  apt  to  be  tediously  inquisitive, 
and  Anderson  had  often  resented  them.  To-day, 
however,  he  let  himself  be  catechised  patiently 
enough,  while  all  the  time  conscious,  from  head 


204       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

to  foot,  of  one  person  only  —  one  near  and  yet 
distant  person. 

Elizabeth  wore  a  dress  of  white  linen,  and  a 
broad  hat  of  soft  blue.  The  combination  of  the 
white  and  blue  with  her  brown  hair,  and  the  pale 
refinement  of  her  face,  seemed  to  him  ravishing, 
enchanting.  So  were  the  movements  of  her  hands 
at  work,  and  all  the  devices  of  her  light  self- 
command;  more  attractive,  infinitely,  to  his 
mature  sense  than  the  involuntary  tremor  of 
girlhood. 

"Hallo!  What  does  Stewart  want.?"  said 
Philip,  raising  himself  in  his  hammock.  The 
hunter  who  had  been  the  companion  of  his  first 
unlucky  attempt  at  fishing  was  coming  towards 
them.  The  boy  sprang  to  the  ground,  and, 
vowing  that  he  would  fish  the  following  morning 
whatever  Elizabeth  might  say,  went  off  to  con- 
sult. 

She  looked  after  him  with  a  smile  and  a 
sigh. 

"Better  give  him  his  head!"  laughed  Ander- 
son. Then,  from  where  he  stood,  he  studied  her 
a  moment,  unseen,  except  by  Delaine,  who  was 
sitting  among  the  moss  a  few  yards  away,  and 
had  temporarily  forgotten  the  Cippus  of  Pales- 
trina. 

Suddenly  the  Canadian  came  forward. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       205 

"Have  you  explored  that  path  yet,  over  the 
shoulder?"  he  said  to  Lady  Merton,  pointing 
to  the  fine  promontory  of  purple  piny  rock  which 
jutted  out  in  front  of  the  glacier  on  the  southern 
side  of  the  lake. 

She  shook  her  head;  but  v^as  it  not  still  too 
early  and  too  hot  to  walk  ?  Anderson  persisted. 
The  path  was  in  shade,  and  would  repay  climbing. 
She  hesitated  —  and  yielded;  making  a  show  of 
asking  Delaine  to  come  with  them.  Delaine  also 
hesitated,  and  refrained;  making  a  show  of  pre- 
ferring the  "Archaeological  Review."  He  was 
left  to  watch  them  mount  the  first  stretches  of 
the  trail;  while  Philip  strolled  along  the  lake 
with  his  companion  in  the  slouch  hat  and  leggings, 
deep  in  tales  of  bass  and  trout. 

Elizabeth  and  Anderson  climbed  a  long  sloping 
ascent  through  the  pines.  The  air  was  warm 
and  scented;  the  heat  of  the  sun  on  the  moistened 
earth  was  releasing  all  its  virtues  and  fragrances, 
overpowering  in  the  open  places,  and  stealing 
even  through  the  shadows.  When  the  trees 
broke  or  receded,  the  full  splendour  of  the  glacier 
was  upon  them  to  their  left;  and  then  for  a  space 
they  must  divine  it  as  a  presence  behind  the  actual, 
faintly  gleaming  and  flashing  through  the  serried 
ranks  of  the  forest.  There  were  heaths  and 
mosses  under  the  pines;   but  otherwise  for  a  while 


2o6       LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST 

the  path  was  flowerless;    and  Elizabeth  discon- 
tentedly remarked  it.     Anderson  smiled. 

"Wait  a  little  —  or  you'll  have  to  apologise  to 
the  Rockies." 

He  looked  down  upon  her,  and  saw  that  her 
small  face  had  bloomed  into  a  vivacity  and  charm 
that  startled  him.  Was  it  only  the  physical 
eflPort  and  pleasure  of  the  climb  ?  As  for  himself, 
it  took  all  the  power  of  a  strong  will  to  check 
the  happy  tumult  in  his  heart. 

Elizabeth  asked  him  of  his  Saskatchewan 
journey.  He  described  to  her  the  growing  town 
he  hoped  to  represent  —  the  rush  of  its  new  life. 

"On  one  Sunday  morning  there  was  nothing 
—  the  bare  prairie;  by  the  next  —  so  to  speak  — 
there  was  a  town  all  complete,  with  a  hotel,  an 
elevator,  a  bank,  and  a  church.  That  w^as  ten 
years  ago.  Then  the  railway  came;  I  saw  the 
first  train  come  in,  garlanded  and  wreathed  with 
flowers.  Now  there  are  eight  thousand  people. 
They  have  reserved  land  for  a  park  along  the 
river,  and  sent  for  a  landscape  gardener  from 
England  to  lay  it  out;  they  have  made  trees  grow 
on  the  prairie;  they  have  built  a  high  school  and 
a  concert  hall;  the  municipality  is  full  of  ambitions; 
and  all  round  the  town,  settlers  are  pouring  in. 
On  market  day  you  find  yourself  in  a  crowd  of 
men,  talking  cattle  and  crops,  the  last  thing  in 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       207 

binders  and  threshers,  as  farmers  do  all  over  the 
world.  But  yet  you  couldn't  match  that  crowd 
in  the  old  world." 

"Which  you  don't  know,"  put  in  Elizabeth, 
with  her  sly  smile. 

"Which  I  don't  know,"  repeated  Anderson 
meekly.  "But  I  guess.  And  I  am  thinking  of 
sayings  of  yours.  Where  in  Europe  can  you 
match  the  sense  of  boundlessness  we  have  here  — 
boundless  space,  boundless  opportunity  .'*  It  often 
makes  fools  of  us:  it  intoxicates,  turns  our  heads. 
There  is  a  germ  of  madness  in  this  Northwest. 
I  have  seen  men  destroyed  by  it.  But  it  is  Nature 
who  is  the  witch.     She  brews  the  cup." 

"All  very  well  for  the  men,"  Elizabeth  said, 
musing  —  "and  the  strong  men.  About  the 
women  in  this  country  I  can't  make  up  my  mind." 

"You  think  of  the  drudgery,  the  domestic 
hardships  ?" 

"There  are  some  ladies  in  the  hotel,  from 
British  Columbia.  They  are  in  easy  circum- 
stances —  and  the  daughter  is  dying  of  overwork! 
The  husband  has  a  large  fruit  farm,  but  they  can 
get  no  service;  the  fruit  rots  on  the  ground;  and 
the  two  women  are  worn  to  death." 

"Aye,"  said  Anderson  gravely.  "This  country 
breeds  life,  but  it  also  devours  it." 

"  I  asked  these  two  women  —  Englishwomen  — 


2o8      LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

if  they  wanted  to  go  home,  and  give  it  up.  They 
fell  upon  me  with  scorn." 

"And  you.?" 

Elizabeth  sighed. 

"I  admired  them.  But  could  I  imitate  them? 
I  thought  of  the  house  at  home;  of  the  old  servants; 
how  it  runs  on  wheels;  hov/  pretty  and  —  and 
dignified  it  all  is;  everybody  at  their  post;  no 
drudgery,  no  disorder," 

"It  is  a  dignity  that  costs  you  dear,"  said 
Anderson  almost  roughly,  and  with  a  change  of 
countenance.  "You  sacrifice  to  it  things  a 
thousand  times  more  real,  more  human." 

"Do  we.?"  said  Elizabeth;  and  then,  with  a 
drop  in  her  voice:  "Dear,  dear  England!"  She 
paused  to  take  breath,  and  as  she  leant  resting 
against  a  tree  he  saw  her  expression  change,  as 
though  a  struggle  passed  through  her. 

The  trees  had  opened  behind  them,  and  they 
looked  back  over  the  lake,  the  hotel,  and  the  wide 
Laggan  valley  beyond.  In  all  that  valley,  not  a 
sign  of  human  life,  but  the  line  of  the  railwa}^ 
Not  a  house,  not  a  village  to  be  seen;  and  at  this 
distance  the  forest  appeared  continuous,  till  it 
died  against  the  rock  and  snow  of  the  higher 
peaks. 

For  the  first  time,  Elizabeth  was  home-sick; 
for  the  first  time  she  shrank  from  a  raw,  untamed 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       209 

land  where  the  House  of  Life  is  only  now  rearing 
its  walls  and  its  roof-timbers,  and  all  its  warm 
furnishings,  its  ornaments  and  hangings  are  still 
to  add.  She  thought  of  the  English  landscapes, 
of  the  woods  and  uplands  round  her  Cumberland 
home;  of  the  old  church,  the  embowered  cottages, 
the  lichened  farms;  the  generations  of  lives  that 
have  died  into  the  soil,  like  the  summer  leaves  of 
the  trees;  of  the  ghosts  to  be  felt  in  the  air  —  ghosts 
of  squire  and  labourer  and  farmer,  alive  still  in 
men  and  women  of  the  present,  as  they  too  will 
live  in  the  unborn.  Her  heart  went  out  to  England; 
fled  back  to  it  over  the  seas,  as  though  renewing, 
in  penitence,  an  allegiance  that  had  wavered. 
And  Anderson  divined  it,  in  the  yearning  of  her 
just-parted  lips,  in  the  quivering,  restrained 
sweetness  of  her  look. 

His  own  heart  sank.  They  resumed  their  walk, 
and  presently  the  path  grew  steeper.  Some  of 
it  was  rough-hewn  in  the  rock,  and  encumbered 
by  roots  of  trees.  Anderson  held  out  a  helping 
hand;  her  fingers  slipped  willingly  into  it;  her 
light  weight  hung  upon  him,  and  every  step  was 
to  him  a  mingled  delight  and  bitterness. 

"Hard  work!"  he  said  presently,  with  his 
encouraging  smile;    "but  you'll  be  paid. 

The  pines  grew  closer,  and  then  suddenly 
lightened.     A  few  more  steps,  and  Elizabeth  gave 


210       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

a  cry  of  pleasure.  They  were  on  the  edge  of  an 
alpine  meadow,  encircled  by  dense  forest,  and 
sloping  down  beneath  their  feet  to  a  lake  that 
lay  half  in  black  shadow,  half  blazing  in  the  after- 
noon sun.  Beyond  was  a  tossed  wilderness  of 
peaks  to  west  and  south.  Light  masses  of  cumu- 
lus cloud  were  rushing  over  the  sky,  and  driving 
v»^aves  of  blue  and  purple  colour  across  the  moun- 
tain masses  and  the  forest  slopes.  Golden  was 
the  sinking  light  and  the  sunlit  half  of  the  lake; 
golden  the  western  faces  and  edges  of  the  mountain 
world;  while  beyond  the  valley,  where  ran  the 
white  smoke  of  a  train,  there  hung  in  the  northern 
sky  a  dream-world  of  undiscovered  snows,  range, 
it  seemed,  beyond  range,  remote,  ethereal;  a 
Valhalla  of  the  old  gods  of  this  vast  land,  where 
one  might  guess  them  still  throned  at  bay,  majes- 
tic, inviolate. 

But  it  was  the  flowers  that  held  Elizabeth  mute. 
Anderson  had  brought  her  to  a  wild  garden  of 
incredible  beauty.  Scarlet  and  blue,  purple  and 
pearl  and  opal,  rose-pink  and  lavender-grey 
the  flower-field  ran  about  her,  as  though  Perse- 
phone herself  had  just  risen  from  the  shadow 
of  this  nameless  northern  lake,  and  the  new 
earth  had  broken  into  eager  flame  at  her  feet. 
Painter's  brush,  harebell,  speedwell,  golden-brown 
gaillardias,  silvery  hawkweed,  columbines  yellow 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       211 

and  blue,  heaths,  and  lush  grasses — Elizabeth  sank 
down  among  them  in  speechless  joy.  Anderson 
gathered  handfuls  of  columbine  and  vetch,  of 
harebell  and  heath,  and  filled  her  lap  with  them, 
till  she  gently  stopped  him. 

"No!     Let  me  only  look!" 

And  with  her  hands  around  her  knees  she  sat 
motionless  and  still.  Anderson  threw  himself 
down  beside  her.  Fragrance,  colour,  warmth; 
the  stir  of  an  endless  self-sufficient  life;  the  fruit- 
fulness  and  bounty  of  the  earth;  these  things  wove 
their  ancient  spells  about  them.  Every  little  rush 
of  the   breeze  seemed  an  invitation  and  a  caress. 

Presently  she  thanked  him  for  having  brought 
her  there,  and  said  something  of  remembering 
it  in  England. 

"As  one  who  will  never  see  it  again  .f*'*  He 
turned  and  faced  her  smiling.  But  behind  his 
frank,  pleasant  look  there  was  something  from 
which  she  shrank. 

"I  shall  hardly  see  it,  again,"  she  said  hesi- 
tating. "  Perhaps  that  makes  it  the  more  — 
the  more  touching.  One  clings  to  it  the  more  — 
the  impression  —  because  it  is  so  fugitive  —  will 
be  so  soon  gone.'* 

He  was  silent  a  moment,  then  said  abruptly: 

"And  the  upshot  of  all  this  is,  that  you  could 
not  imagine  living  in  Canada  .?" 


212       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

She  started. 

"I  never  said  so.  Of  course  I  could  imagine 
living  in  Canada!'* 

"  But  you  think,  for  women,  the  life  up  here  — 
in  the  Northwest  —  is  too  hard." 

She  looked  at  him  timidly. 

"That's  because  I  look  at  it  from  my  English 
point  of  view.  I  am  afraid  English  life  makes 
weaklings  of  us." 

"No  —  not  of  you!"  he  said,  almost  scorn- 
fully. "Any  life  that  seemed  to  you  worth  while 
would  find  you  strong  enough  for  it.  I  am  sure 
of  that." 

Elizabeth  smiled  and  shrugged  her  shoulders. 
He  went  on  —  almost  as  though  pleading  with  her. 

"And  as  to  our  Western  life  —  which  you  will 
soon  have  left  so  far  behind  —  it  strains  and  tests 
the  women  —  true  —  but  it  rewards  them.  They 
have  a  great  place  among  us.  It  is  like  the  women 
of  the  early  races.  We  listen  to  them  in  the 
house,  and  on  the  land;  we  depend  on  them 
indoors  and  out;  their  husbands  and  their  sons 
worship  them!" 

Elizabeth  flushed  involuntarily;  but  she  met 
him  gaily. 

"In  England  too!     Come  and  see!" 

"I  shall  probably  be  in  England  next  spring." 

Elizabeth  made  a  sudden  movement. 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       213 

"I  thought  you  would  be  in  political  life  here!" 

"  I  have  had  an  offer  —  an  exciting  and  flattering 
offer.     May  I  tell  you?" 

He  turned  to  her  eagerly;  and  she  smiled  her 
sympathy,  her  curiosity.  Whereupon  he  took 
a  letter  from  his  pocket  —  a  letter  from  the 
Dominion  Prime  Minister,  offering  him  a  mission 
of  inquiry  to  England,  on  some  important  matters 
connected  with  labour  and  emigration.  The 
letter  was  remarkable,  addressed  to  a  man  so 
young,  and  on  the  threshold  of  his  political  career. 

Elizabeth  congratulated  him  warmly. 

"Of  course  you  will  come  to  stay  with  us!" 

It  was  his  turn  to  redden. 

"You  are  very  kind,"  he  said  formally.  "As 
you  know,  I  shall  have  everything  to  learn." 

"I  will  show  you  our  farms!"  cried  Elizabeth^ 
"and  all  our  dear  decrepit  life  —  our  little  chess- 
board of  an  England." 

"How  proud  you  are,  you  Englishwomen!" 
he  said,  half  frowning.  "You  run  yourselves 
down  —  and  at  bottom  there  is  a  pride  hke  Luci- 
ler  s. 

"But  it  is  not  my  pride,"  she  said,  hurt,  "any 
more  than  yours.  We  are  yours  —  and  you  are 
ours.     One  state  —  one  country." 

"No,  don't  let  us  sentimentalise.  We  have 
our  own  future.     It  is  not  yours." 


214       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

"But  you  are  loyal!'*  The  note  was  one  of 
pain. 

"Are  we?  Foolish  word!  Yes,  we  are  loyal, 
as  you  are  —  loyal  to  a  common  ideal,  a  common 
mission  in  the  world." 

"To  blood  also  —  and  to  history  ?"  Her  voice 
was  almost  entreating.  What  he  had  said  seemed 
to  jar  with  other  and  earlier  sayings  of  his,  which 
had  stirred  in  her  a  patriotic  pleasure. 

He  smiled  at  her  emotion  —  her  implied 
reproach. 

"Yes,  we  stand  together.  We  march  together. 
But  Canada  will  have  her  own  history;  and  you 
must  not  try  to  make  it  for  her.'* 

Their  eyes  met;  in  hers  exaltion,  in  his  a  touch 
of  sternness,  a  moment's  revelation  of  the  Cov- 
enanter in  his  soul. 

Then  as  the  delightful  vision  of  her  among  the 
flowers,  in  her  white  dress,  the  mountains  behind 
and  around  her,  imprinted  itself  on  his  senses, 
he  was  conscious  of  a  moment  of  intolerable 
pain.  Between  her  and  him  —  as  it  were  —  the 
abyss  opened.  The  trembling  waves  of  colour 
in  the  grass,  the  noble  procession  of  the  clouds, 
the  gleaming  of  the  snows,  the  shadow  of  the 
valleys  —  they  were  all  wiped  out.  He  saw 
instead  a  small  unsavoury  room  —  the  cunning 
eyes   and   coarse   mouth   of  his   father.     He   saw 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       215 

his  own  future  as  it  must  now  be;  weighted  with 
this  burden,  this  secret;  if  indeed  it  were  still 
to  be  a  secret;  if  it  were  not  rather  the  wiser  and 
the  manlier  plan  to  have  done  with  secrecy. 

Elizabeth  rose  with  a  little  shiver.  The  wind 
had    begun    to   blow   cold    from   the    northwest. 

"  How  soon  can  we  run  down  ^  I  hope  Mr. 
Arthur  will  have  sent  Philip  indoors." 

Anderson  left  Lake  Louise  about  eight  o'clock, 
and  hurried  down  the  Laggan  road.  His  mind 
was  divided  between  the  bitter-sweet  of  these 
last  hours  with  Elizabeth  Merton,  and  anxieties, 
small  practical  anxieties,  about  his  father.  There 
were  arrangements  still  to  make.  He  was  not 
himself  going  to  Vancouver.  McEwen  had  lately 
shown  a  strong  and  petulant  wish  to  preserve 
his  incognito,  or  what  was  left  of  it.  He  would 
not  have  his  son's  escort.  George  might  come 
and  see  him  at  Vancouver;  and  that  would  be 
time  enough  to  settle  up  for  the  winter. 

So  Ginnell,  owner  of  the  boarding  house,  a 
stalwart  Irishman  of  six  foot  three,  had  been 
appointed  to  see  him  through  his  journey,  settle 
him  with  his  new  protectors,  and  pay  all  necessary 
expenses. 

Anderson  knocked  at  his  father's  door  and  was 
allowed    to   enter.     He   found    McEwen   walking 


:ii6       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

up  and  down  his  room,  with  the  aid  of  a  stick, 
irritably  pushing  chairs  and  clothes  out  of  his 
way.  The  room  was  in  squalid  disorder,  and  its 
inmate  had  a  flushed,  exasperated  look  that  did 
not  escape  Anderson's  notice.  He  thought  it 
probable  that  his  father  was  already  repenting 
his  consent  to  go  to  Vancouver,  and  he  avoided 
general  conversation  as  much   as  possible. 

McEwen  complained  of  having  been  left  alone; 
abused  Mrs,  Ginnell;  vowed  she  had  starved  and 
ill-treated  him;  and  then,  to  Anderson's  surprise, 
broke  out  against  his  son  for  having  refused  to 
provide  him  with  the  money  he  wanted  for  the 
mine,  and  so  ruined  his  last  chance.  Anderson 
hardly  replied;  but  what  he  did  say  was  as  sooth- 
ing as  possible;  and  at  last  the  old  man  flung 
himself  on  his  bed,  excitement  dying  away  in  a 
sulky  taciturnity. 

Before  Anderson  left  his  room,  Ginnell  came 
in,  bringing  his  accounts  for  certain  small  ex- 
penses. Anderson,  standing  with  his  back  to  his 
father,  took  out  a  pocketbook  full  of  bills.  At 
Calgary  the  day  before  a  friend  had  repaid  him 
a  loan  of  a  thousand  dollars.  He  gave  Ginnell 
a  certain  sum;  talked  to  him  in  a  low  voice  for 
a  time,  thinking  his  father  had  dropped  asleep; 
and  then  dismissed  him,  putting  the  money  in 
his  pocket. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       217 

"Good  night,  father,"  he  said,  standing  beside 
the  bed. 

McEwen  opened  his  eyes. 

"Eh.?" 

The  eyes  into  which  Anderson  looked  <had  no 
sleep  in  them.  They  were  wild  and  bloodshot, 
and  again  Anderson  felt  a  pang  of  helpless  pity 
for  a  dishonoured  and  miserable  old  age. 

"Tm  sure  you'll  get  on  at  Vancouver,  father," 
he  said  gently.     "And  I  shall  be  there  next  week." 

His  father  growled  some  unintelligible  answer. 
As  Anderson  went  to  the  door  he   again   called 

after   him    angrily:     "You    were  a  d fool, 

George,  not  to  find  those  dibs." 

"What,  for  the  mine?"  Anderson  laughed. 
"Oh,   we'll   go   into   that   again   at  Vancouver."' 

McEwen  made  no  reply,  and  Anderson  left  him. 

Anderson  woke  before  seven.  The  long  even- 
ing had  passed  into  the  dawn  with  scarcely  any 
darkness,  and  the  sun  was  now  high.  He  sprang 
up,  and  dressed  hastily.  Going  into  the  passage 
he  saw  to  his  astonishment  that  while  the  door 
of  the  Ginnells'  room  was  still  closed,  his  father's 
was  wide  open.  He  walked  in.  The  room  and 
the  bed  were  empty.  The  contents  of  a  box 
carefully  packed  by  Ginnell  —  mostly  with  new 
clothes  —  the    night    before,    were    lying    strewn 


2i8       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

about  the  room.  But  McEwen's  old  clothes 
were  gone,  his  gun  and  revolver,  also  his  pipes 
and  tobacco. 

Anderson  roused  Ginnell,  and  thev  searched 
the  house  and  its  neighbourhood  in  vain.  On 
going  back  into  his  own  room,  Anderson  noticed 
an  open  drawer.  He  had  placed  his  pocket- 
book  there  the  night  before,  but  without  locking 
the  drawer.  It  was  gone,  and  in  its  place  was  a 
dirty  scrap  of  paper. 

"Don't  you  try  chivvying  me,  George,  for  you 
won't  get  any  good  of  it.  You  let  me  alone,  and 
I'll  let  you.  You  were  a  stingy  fellow  about  that 
money,  so  I've  took  some  of  it.     Good-bye." 

Sick  at  heart,  Anderson  resumed  the  search, 
further  afield.  He  sent  Ginnell  along  the  line 
to  make  confidential  inquiries.  He  telegraphed 
to  persons  known  to  him  at  Golden,  Revelstoke, 
Kamloops,  Ashcroft,  all  to  no  purpose.  Twenty- 
four  —  thirty-six  hours  passed  and  nothing  had 
been  heard  of  the  fugitive. 

He  felt  himself  baffled  and  tricked,  with  certain 
deep  instincts  and  yearnings  wounded  to  the 
death.  The  brutal  manner  of  his  father's  escape 
—  the  robbery  —  the  letter  —  had  struck  him 
hard. 

When  Friday  night  came,  and  still  no  news, 
Anderson   found   himself  at  the  C.   P.   R.   Hotel 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST       219 

at  Field.  He  was  stupid  with  fatigue  and  depres- 
sion. But  he  had  been  in  telephonic  communi- 
cation all  the  afternoon  with  Delaine  and  Lady 
Merton  at  Lake  Louise,  as  to  their  departure 
for  the  Pacific.  They  knew  nothing  and  should 
know  nothing  of  his  own  catastrophe;  their  plans 
should  not  suffer. 

He  went  out  into  the  summer  night  to  take 
breath,  and  commune  with  himself.  The  night 
was  balmy;  the  stars  glorious.  On  a  siding 
near  the  hotel  stood  the  private  car  which  had 
arrived  that  evening  from  Vancouver,  and  was 
to  go  to  Laggan  the  following  morning  to  fetch 
the  English  party.  They  were  to  pick  him  up, 
on  the  return,  at  Field. 

He  had  failed  to  save  his  father,  and  his  honest 
effort  had  been  made  in  vain.  Humiliation  and 
disappointment  overshadowed  him.  Passion- 
ately, his  whole  soul  turned  to  Elizabeth.  He 
did  not  yet  grasp  all  the  bearings  of  what  had 
happened.  But  he  began  to  count  the  hours 
to  the  time  when  he  should  see  her. 


CHAPTER  XI 

A  DAY  of  showers  and  breaking  clouds  —  of 
sudden  sunlight,  and  broad  clefts  of  blue;  a  day 
when  shreds  of  mist  are  lightly  looped  and  meshed 
about  the  higher  peaks  of  the  Rockies  and  the 
Selkirks,  dividing  the  forest  world  from  the  ice 
world  above.     .     .     . 

The  car  was  slowly  descending  the  Kicking 
Horse  Pass,  at  the  rear  of  a  heavy  train.  Elizabeth, 
on  her  platform,  was  feasting  her  eyes  once  more 
on  the  great  savage  landscape,  on  these  peaks 
and  valleys  that  have  never  till  now  known  man, 
save  as  the  hunter,  treading  them  once  or  twice 
perhaps  in  a  century.  Dreamily  her  mind  con- 
trasted them  w^ith  the  Alps,  where  from  all  time 
man  has  laboured  and  sheltered,  blending  his 
life,  his  births  and  deaths,  his  loves  and  hates 
with  the  glaciers  and  the  forests,  wresting  his 
food  from  the  valleys,  creeping  height  over  height 
to  the  snow  line,  writing  his  will  on  the  country, 
so  that  in  our  thought  of  it  he  stands  first,  and 
Nature  second.  The  Swiss  mountains  and 
streams  breathe  a  "mighty  voice,"  lent  to  them 


220 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       221 

by  the  free  passion  and  aspiration  of  man;  they 
are  interfused  and  interwoven  forever  with  human 
fate.  But  in  the  Rockies  and  the  Selkirks  man 
counts  for  nothing  in  their  past;  and,  except  as 
wayfarer  and  playfellow,  it  is  probable  that  he 
will  count  for  nothing  in  their  future.  They  will 
never  be  the  familiar  companions  of  his  work 
and  prayer  and  love;  a  couple  of  railways,  indeed, 
will  soon  be  driving  through  them,  linking  the 
life  of  the  prairies  to  the  life  of  the  Pacific;  but, 
except  for  this  conquest  of  them  as  barriers  in  his 
path,  when  his  summer  camps  in  them  are  struck, 
they,  sheeted  in  a  winter  inaccessible  and  superb, 
know  him  and  his  puny  deeds  no  more,  till  again 
the  lakes  melt  and  the  trees  bud.  This  it  is  that 
gives  them  their  strange  majesty,  and  clothes  their 
brief  summer,  their  laughing  fields  of  flowers, 
their  thickets  of  red  raspberry  and  slopes  of 
strawberry,  their  infinity  of  gleaming  lakes  and 
foaming  rivers  —  rivers  that  turn  no  mill  and 
light  no  town  —  with  a  charm,  half  magical,  half 
mocking. 

And  yet,  though  the  travelled  intelligence  made 
comparisons  of  this  kind,  it  was  not  with  the  moun- 
tains that  Elizabeth's  deepest  mind  was  busy. 
She  took  really  keener  note  of  the  railway  itself, 
and  its  appurtenances.  For  here  man  had 
expressed   himself;   had   pitched   his   battle   with 


222       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

a  fierce  nature  and  won  it;  as  no  doubt  he  will 
wMn  other  similar  battles  in  the  coming  years. 
Through  Anderson  this  battle  had  become  real 
to  her.  She  looked  eagerly  at  the  construction 
camps  in  the  pass;  at  the  new  line  that  is  soon  to 
supersede  the  old;  at  the  bridges  and  tunnels 
and  snow-sheds,  by  which  contriving  man  had 
made  his  purpose  prevail  over  the  physical  forces 
of  this  wild  world.  The  great  railway  spoke  to 
her  in  terms  of  human  life;  and  because  she  had 
known  Anderson  she  understood  its  message. 

Secretly  and  sorely  her  thoughts  clung  to  him. 
Just  as,  insensibly,  her  vision  of  Canada  had 
changed,  so  had  her  vision  of  Anderson.  Canada 
was  no  longer  mere  fairy  tale  and  romance; 
Anderson  was  no  longer  merely  its  picturesque 
exponent  or  representative.  She  had  come  to 
realise  him  as  a  man,  with  a  man's  cares  and 
passions;  and  her  feelings  about  him  had  begun 
to  change  her  life. 

Arthur  Delaine,  she  supposed,  had  meant  to 
warn  her  that  Mr.  Anderson  was  falling  in  love 
with  her  and  that  she  had  no  right  to  encourage 
it.  Her  thoughts  went  back  intently  over  the 
last  fortnight  —  Anderson's  absences  —  his  par- 
tial withdrawal  from  the  intimacy  which  had  grown 
up  between  himself  and  her  —  their  last  walk 
at  Lake  Louise.     The  delight  of  that  walk  was 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       223 

still  in  her  veins,  and  at  last  she  was  frank  with 
herself  about  it!  In  his  attitude  towards  her, 
now  that  she  forced  herself  to  face  the  truth,  she 
must  needs  recognise  a  passionate  eagerness, 
restrained  no  less  passionately;  a  profound  impulse, 
strongly  felt,  and  strongly  held  back.  By  mere 
despair  of  attainment  ?  —  or  by  the  scruple  of  an 
honourable  self-control  ? 

Could  she  —  could  she  marry  a  Canadian  ? 
There  was  the  central  question,  out  at  last!  — 
irrevocable!  —  writ  large  on  the  mountains  and 
the  forests,  as  she  sped  through  them.  Could 
she,  possessed  by  inheritance  of  all  that  is  most 
desirable  and  delightful  in  English  society,  linked 
with  its  sreat  interests  and  its  dominant  class,  and 
through  them  with  the  rich  cosmopolitan  life  01 
cultivated  Europe  —  could  she  tear  herself  from 
that  old  soil,  and  that  dear  familiar  environment  ? 
Had  the  plant  vitality  enough  to  bear  trans- 
planting ?  She  did  not  put  her  question  in  these 
terms;  but  that  was  what  her  sudden  tumult 
and  distress  of  mind  really  meant. 

Looking  up,  she  saw  Delaine  beside  her.  Well, 
there  was  Europe,  and  at  her  feet!  For  the  last 
month  she  had  been  occupied  in  scorning  it. 
English  country-house  life,  artistic  society  and 
pursuits,  London  in  the  season,  Paris  and  Rome  in 
the  spring,  English  social  and  political  influence  — 


224       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

there  they  were  beside  her.  She  had  only  to 
stretch  out  her  hand. 

A  chill,  uncomfortable  laughter  seemed  to  fill 
the  inner  mind  through  which  the  debate  passed, 
while  all  the  time  she  was  apparently  looking  at 
the  landscape,  and  chatting  with  her  brother  or 
Delaine.  She  fell  into  an  angry  contempt  for 
that  mood  of  imaginative  delight  in  which  she 
had  journeyed  through  Canada  so  far.  What! 
treat  a  great  nation  in  the  birth  as  though  it  were 
there  for  her  mere  pleasure  and  entertainment  ? 
Make  of  it  a  mere  spectacle  and  pageant,  and 
turn  with  disgust  from  the  notion  that  you,  too, 
could  ever  throw  in  your  lot  with  it,  fight  as  a 
foot-soldier  in  its  ranks,  on  equal  terms,  for  life 
and  death! 

She  despised  herself.  And  yet  —  and  yet! 
She  thought  of  her  mother  —  her  frail,  refined, 
artistic  mother;  of  a  hundred  subtleties  and  charms 
and  claims,  in  that  world  she  understood,  in  which 
she  had  been  reared;  of  all  that  she  must  leave 
behind,  were  she  asked,  and  did  she  consent,  to 
share  the  life  of  a  Canadian  of  Anderson's  type. 
What  would  it  be  to  fail  in  such  a  venture!  To 
dare  it,  and  then  to  find  life  sinking  in  sands  of 
cowardice  and  weakness!  Very  often,  and  some- 
times as  though  by  design,  Anderson  had  spoken 
to    her    of   the    part    to    be    played    by    women 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       225 

in  Canada;  not  in  the  defensiv^e,  optimistic  tone 
of  their  last  walk  together,  but  forbiddingly, 
with  a  kind  of  rough  insistence.  Substantial  com- 
fort, a  large  amount  of  applied  science  —  that 
could  be  got.  But  the  elegancies  and  refinements 
of  English  rich  life  in  a  prairie  farm  —  impossible! 
A  woman  who  marries  a  Canadian  farmer,  large 
or  small,  must  put  her  own  hands  to  the  drudgery 
of  life,  to  the  cooking,  sewing,  baking,  that  keep 
man  —  animal  man  —  alive.  A  certain  amount 
of  rude  service  money  can  command  in  the 
Northwest;  but  it  is  a  service  which  only  the 
housewife's  personal  cooperation  can  make  toler- 
able. Life  returns,  in  fact,  to  the  old  primitive 
pattern;  and  a  woman  counts  on  the  prairie 
according  as  "she  looketh  well  to  the  ways  of 
her  household  and  eateth  not  the  bread  of 
idleness.'* 

Suddenly  Elizabeth  perceived  her  own  hands 
lying  on  her  lap.  Useless  bejewelled  things! 
When  had  they  ever  fed  a  man  or  nursed  a  child  .? 

Under  her  gauze  veil  she  coloured  fiercely.  If 
the  housewife,  in  her  primitive  meaning  and 
ofBce,  is  vital  to  Canada,  still  more  is  the  house- 
mother. "Bear  me  sons  and  daughters;  people 
my  wastes!"  seems  to  be  the  cry  of  the  land  itself. 
Deep  in  Elizabeth's  being  there  stirred  instincts 
and  yearnings  which  life  had  so  far  stifled  in  her. 


226       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

She  shivered  as  though  some  voice,  passionate  and 
yet  austere,  spoke  to  her  from  this  great  spectacle 
of  mountain  and  water  through  v^hich  she  was 
passing. 

"There  he  is!'*  cried  PhiHp,  craning  his  head 
to  look  ahead  along  the  train. 

Anderson  stood  waiting  for  them  on  the  Field 
platform.  Very  soon  he  was  seated  beside  her, 
outside  the  car,  while  Philip  lounged  in  the  door- 
way, and  Delaine  inside,  having  done  his  duty  to 
the  Kicking  Horse  Pass,  was  devoting  himself 
to  a  belated  number  of  the  "Athenaeum"  which 
had  just  reached  him. 

Philip  had  stored  up  a  string  of  questions  as 
to  the  hunting  of  goat  in  the  Rockies,  and  impa- 
tiently produced  them.  Anderson  replied,  but, 
as  Elizabeth  immediately  perceived,  with  a 
complete  lack  of  his  usual  animation.  He  spoke 
with  effort,  occasionally  stumbling  over  his  words. 
She  could  not  help  looking  at  him  curiously,  and 
presently  even  Philip  noticed  something  wrong. 

"I  say,  Anderson!  —  what  have  you  been  doing 
to  yourself.''  You  look  as  though  you  had  been 
knocking  up." 

"I  have  been  a  bit  driven  this  week,"  said 
Anderson,  with  a  start.  "Oh,  nothing!  You 
must  look  at  this  piece  of  line." 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       227 

And  as  they  ran  down  the  long  ravine  from 
Field  to  Golden,  beside  a  river  which  all  the 
way  seems  to  threaten  the  gliding  train  by  the 
savage  force  of  its  descent,  he  played  the  show- 
man. The  epic  of  the  C.  P.  R. — no  one  knew 
it  better,  and  no  one  could  recite  it  more  vividly 
than  he. 

So  also,  as  they  left  the  Rockies  behind;  as  they 
sped  along  the  Columbia  between  the  Rockies 
to  their  right  and  the  Selkirks  to  their  left;  or  as 
they  turned  away  from  the  Columbia,  and,  on 
the  flanks  of  the  Selkirks,  began  to  mount  that 
forest  valley  which  leads  to  Roger's  Pass,  he 
talked  freely  and  well,  exerting  himself  to  the 
utmost.  The  hopes  and  despairs,  the  endurances 
and  ambitions  of  the  first  explorers  w^ho  ever 
broke  into  that  fierce  solitude,  he  could  reproduce 
them;  for,  though  himself  of  a  younger  generation, 
yet  by  sympathy  he  had  lived  them.  And  if  he 
had  not  been  one  of  the  builders  of  the  line,  in 
the  incessant  guardianship  which  preserves  it 
from  day  to  day,  he  had  at  one  time  played  a 
prominent  part,  battling  with  Nature  for  it,  sum- 
mer and  winter. 

Delaine,  at  last,  came  out  to  listen.  Philip 
in  the  grip  of  his  first  hero-worship,  lay  silent  and 
absorbed,  watching  the  face  and  gestures  of  the 
speaker.     Elizabeth    sat    with    her    eyes    turned 


228       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

away  from  Anderson  towards  the  wild  valley, 
as  they  rose  and  rose  above  it.  She  listened; 
but  her  heart  was  full  of  new  anxieties.  What 
had  happened  to  him  .?  She  felt  him  changed. 
He  was  talking  for  their  pleasure,  by  a  strong 
effort  of  will;  that  she  realised.  When  could  she 
get  him  alone  .f*  —  her  friend!  —  who  was  clearly 
in  distress. 

They  approached  the  famous  bridges  on  the 
long  ascent.  Yerkes  came  running  through  the 
car  to  point  out  with  pride  the  place  where  the 
Grand  Duchess  had  fainted  beneath  the  terrors 
of  the  line.  With  only  the  railing  of  their  little 
platform  between  them  and  the  abyss,  they  ran 
over  ravines  hundreds  of  feet  deep  —  the  valley, 
a  thousand  feet  sheer,  below.  And  in  that  valley 
not  a  sign  of  house,  of  path;  only  black  impene- 
trable forest  —  huge  cedars  and  Douglas  pines, 
filling  up  the  bottoms,  choking  the  river  with  their 
debris,  climbing  up  the  further  sides,  towards  the 
gleaming  line  of  peaks. 

"It  is  a  nightmare!"  said  Delaine  involuntarily, 
looking  round  him. 

Elizabeth  laughed,  a  bright  colour  in  her  cheeks. 
Again  the  wilderness  ran  through  her  blood, 
answering  the  challenge  of  Nature.  Faint!  — 
she  was  more  inclined  to  sing  or  shout.  And 
with  the  exhilaration,  physical  and  mental,  that 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST       229 

stole  upon  her,  there  mingled  secretly,  the  first 
thrill  of  passion  she  had  ever  known.  Anderson 
sat  beside  her,  once  more  silent  after  his  burst 
of  talk.  She  was  vividly  conscious  of  him  —  of 
his  bare  curly  head  —  of  certain  lines  of  fatigue 
and  suffering  in  the  bronzed  face.  And  it  was 
conveyed  to  her  that,  although  he  was  clearly  pre- 
occupied and  sad,  he  was  yet  conscious  of  her  in  the 
same  way.  Once,  as  they  were  passing  the  highest 
bridge  of  all,  where,  carried  on  a  great  steel  arch, 
that  has  replaced  the  older  trestles,  the  rails  run 
naked  and  gleaming,  without  the  smallest  shred 
of  wall  or  parapet,  across  a  gash  in  the  mountain 
up  which  they  were  creeping,  and  at  a  terrific 
height  above  the  valley,  Elizabeth,  who  was  sitting 
with  her  back  to  the  engine,  bent  suddenly  to  one 
side,  leaning  over  the  little  railing  and  looking 
ahead  —  that  she  might  if  possible  get  a  clearer 
sight  of  Mount  Macdonald,  the  giant  at  whose 
feet  lies  Roger's  Pass.  Suddenly,  as  her  weight 
pressed  against  the  ironwork  where  only  that 
morning  a  fastening  had  been  mended,  she  felt 
a  grip  on  her  arm.     She  drew  back,  startled. 

"I  beg  your  pardon!"  said  Anderson,  smiling, 
but  a  trifle  paler  than  before.  "I'm  not  troubled 
with   nerves   for   myself,   but " 

He  did  not  complete  the  sentence,  and  Elizabeth 
could  find  nothing  to  say. 


230       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

"Why,  Elizabeth's  not  afraid!"  cried  Philip, 
scornfully. 

"This  is  Roger's  Pass,  and  here  we  are  at  the 
top  of  the  Selkirks,"  said  Anderson,  rising.  "The 
train  will  wait  here  some  twenty  minutes. 
Perhaps  you  would  like  to  walk  about." 

They  descended,  all  but  Philip,  who  grumbled 
at  the  cold,  wrapped  himself  in  a  rug  inside  the 
car,  and  summoned  Yerkes  to  bring  him  a  cup  of 
coffee. 

On  this  height  indeed,  and  beneath  the  preci- 
pices of  Mount  Macdonald,  which  rise  some  five 
thousand  feet  perpendicularly  above  the  railway, 
the  air  was  chill  and  the  clouds  had  gathered. 
On  the  right,  ran  a  line  of  glacier-laden 
peaks,  calling  to  their  fellows  across  the  pass. 
The  ravine  itself,  darkly  magnificent,  made  a 
gulf  of  shadow  out  of  which  rose  glacier  and  snow 
slope,  now  veiled  and  now  revealed  by  scudding 
cloud.  Heavy  rain  had  not  long  since  fallen  on 
the  pass;  the  small  stream,  winding  and  looping 
through  the  narrow  strip  of  desolate  ground 
which  marks  the  summit,  roared  in  flood  through 
marshy  growths  of  dank  weed  and  stunted  shrub; 
and  the  noise  reverberated  from  the  mountain 
walls,  pressing  straight  and  close  on  either  hand. 

"Hark!"  cried  Elizabeth,  standing  still,  her 
face  and  her  light  dress  beaten  by  the  wind. 


LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST       231 

A  sound  which  was  neither  thunder  nor  the 
voice  of  the  stream  rose  and  swelled  and  filled  the 
pass.  Another  followed  it.  Anderson  pointed 
to  the  snowy  crags  of  Mount  Macdonald,  and 
there,  leaping  from  ledge  to  ledge,  they  saw  the 
summer  avalanches  descend,  roaring  as  they  came, 
till  they  sank  engulfed  in  a  vaporous  whirl  of  snow. 

Delaine  tried  to  persuade  Elizabeth  to  return 
to  the  car  —  in  vain.  He  himself  returned  thither 
for  a  warmer  coat,  and  she  and  Anderson  walked 
on   alone. 

"The  Rockies  were  fine!  —  but  the  Selkirks 
are  superb!" 

She  smiled  at  him  as  she  spoke,  as  though  she 
thanked  him  personally  for  the  grandeur  round 
them.  Her  slender  form  seemed  to  have  grown 
in  stature  and  in  energy.  The  mountain  rain 
was  on  her  fresh  cheek  and  her  hair;  a  blue  veil 
eddying  round  her  head  and  face  framed  the 
brilliance  of  her  eyes.  Those  who  had  known 
Elizabeth  in  Europe  would  hardly  have  recog- 
nised her  here.  The  spirit  of  earth's  wild  and 
virgin  places  had  mingled  with  her  spirit,  and  as 
she  had  grown  in  sympathy,  so  also  she  had  grown 
in  beauty.  Anderson  looked  at  her  from  time 
to  time  in  enchantment,  grudging  every  minute 
that  passed.  The  temptation  strengthened  to 
tell  her  his  trouble.     But  how,  or  when  ^ 


232       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

As  he  turned  to  her  he  saw  that  she,  too,  was 
gazing  at  him  with  an  anxious,  wistful  expression, 
her  Hps  parted  as  though  to  speak. 

He  bent  over  her, 

"What  was  that  ?"  exclaimed  Elizabeth,  looking 
round  her. 

They  had  passed  beyond  the  station  where 
the  train  was  at  rest.  But  the  sound  of  shouts 
pursued  them.  Anderson  distinguished  his  own 
name.  A  couple  of  railway  officials  had  left 
the  station  and  were  hurrying  towards  them. 

A  sudden  thought  struck  Anderson.  He  held 
up  his  hand  with  a  gesture  as  though  to  ask  Lady 
Merton  not  to  follow,  and  himself  ran  back  to 
the  station. 

Elizabeth,  from  where  she  stood,  saw  the 
passengers  all  pouring  out  of  the  train  on  to  the 
platform.  Even  Philip  emerged  and  waved  to 
her.  She  slowly  returned,  and  meanwhile  Ander- 
son had  disappeared. 

She  found  an  excited  crowd  of  travellers  and  a 
babel  of  noise.     Delaine  hurried  to  her. 

It  appeared  that  an  extraordinary  thing  had 
happened.  The  train  immediately  in  front  of 
them,  carrying  mail  and  express  cars  but  no 
passengers,  had  been  "held  up"  by  a  gang  of 
train-robbers,  at  a  spot  between  Sicamous  junction 
and  Kamloops.     In  order  to  break  open  the  mail 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       233 

van  the  robbers  had  employed  a  charge  of  dyna- 
mite, which  had  wrecked  the  car  and  caused  some 
damage  to  the  Hne;  enough  to  block  the  permanent 
way  for  some  hours. 

"And  Philip  has  just  opened  this  telegram 
for  you.'* 

Delaine  handed  it  to  her.  It  was  from  the 
District  Superintendent,  expressing  great  regret 
for  the  interruption  to  their  journey,  and  suggesting 
that  they  should  spend  the  night  at  the  hotel  at 
Glacier. 

"Which  I  understand  is  only  four  miles  off, 
the  other  side  of  the  pass,"  said  Delaine.  "Was 
there  ever  anything  more  annoying!" 

Elizabeth's  face  expressed  an  utter  bewilder- 
ment. 

"A  train  held  up  in  Canada  —  and  on  the 
C.  P.  R.— impossible!" 

An  elderly  man  in  front  of  her  heard  what  she 
said,  and  turned  upon  her  a  face  purple  with 
wrath. 

"You  may  well  say  that,  madam!  We  are  a 
law-abiding  nation.  We  don't  put  up  with  the 
pranks  they  play  in  Montana.  They  say  the 
scoundrels  have  got  oflP.  If  we  don't  catch  them, 
Canada's  disgraced." 

"I  say,  Elizabeth,"  cried  Philip,  pushing  his 
way  to  her  through  the  crowd,  "there's  been  a  lot 


234       LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST 

of  shooting.  There's  some  Mounted  PoHce  here, 
we  picked  up  at  Reveistoke,  on  their  way  to  help 
catch  these  fellows.  I've  been  talking  to  them. 
The  police  from  Kamloops  came  upon  them  just 
as  they  were  making  off  with  a  pretty  pile  — 
boxes  full  of  money  for  some  of  the  banks  in 
Vancouver.  The  police  fired,  so  did  the  robbers. 
One  of  the  police  was  killed,  and  one  of  the  thieves. 
Then  the  rest  got  off.  I  say,  let's  go  and  help 
hunt  them!" 

The  boy's  eyes  danced  with  the  joy  of  adventure. 

"If  they've  any  sense  they'll  send  bloodhounds 
after  them,"  said  the  elderly  man,  fiercely.  "I 
helped  catch  a  murderer  with  my  own  hands  that 
way,  last  summer,  near  the  Arrow  Lakes." 

"Where  is  Mr.  Anderson.?" 

The  question  escaped  Elizabeth  involuntarily. 
She  had  not  meant  to  put  it.  But  it  was  curious 
that  he  should  have  left  them  in  the  lurch  at  this 
particular  moment. 

"Take  your  seats!"  cried  the  station-master, 
making  his  way  through  the  crowded  platform. 
"This  train  goes  as  far  as  Sicamous  Junction 
only.  Any  passenger  who  wishes  to  break  his 
journey   will   find    accommodation    at   Glacier  — 


next  station." 


The  English  travellers  were  hurried  back  into 
their    car.     Still    no    sign    of  Anderson.     Yerkes 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       235 

was  only  able  to  tell  them  that  he  had  seen  Ander- 
son go  into  the  station-master's  private  room  with 
a  couple  of  the  Mounted  Police.  He  might  have 
come  out  again,  or  he  might  not.  Yerkes  had  been 
too  well  occupied  in  exciting  gossip  with  all  his 
many  acquaintances  in  the  train  and  the  station 
to  notice. 

The  conductor  went  along  through  the  train. 
Yerkes,  standing  on  the  inside  platform,  called  to 
him: 

"Have  you  seen  Mr.  Anderson  .?'* 

The  man  shook  his  head,  but  another  standing 
by,  evidently  an  official  of  some  kind,  looked  round 
and  ran  up  to  the  car. 

*'I'm  sorry,  madam,"  he  said,  addressing 
Elizabeth,  who  was  standing  in  the  doorway,  "  but 
Mr.  Anderson  isn't  at  liberty  just  now.  He'll 
be  travelling  with  the  police." 

And  as  he  spoke  a  door  in  the  station  building 
opened,  and  Anderson  came  out,  accompanied 
by  two  constables  of  the  Mounted  Police  and  two 
or  three  officials.  They  walked  hurriedly  along 
the  train  and  got  into  an  empty  compartment 
together.  Immediately  afterwards  the  train 
moved  off. 

"Well,  I  wonder  what's  up  now!"  said  Philip 
in  astonishment.  "Do  you  suppose  Anderson's 
got  some  clue  to  the  men.'^" 


236       LADY   MERTOX,   COLOMST 

Delaine  looked  uncomtortably  at  Elizabeth. 
As  an  old  adviser  and  servant  of  the  railway, 
extensively  acquainted  moreover  with  the  popula- 
tion —  settled  or  occasional  —  of  the  district 
it  was  very  natural  that  Anderson  should  be  con- 
sulted on  such  an  event.  And  yet  —  Delaine  had 
caught  a  glimpse  of  his  aspect  on  his  way  along 
the  platform,  and  had  noticed  that  he  never 
looked  towards  the  car.  Some  odd  conjectures 
ran  through  his  miind. 

Elizabeth  sat  silent,  looking  back  on  the  grim 
defile  the  train  was  just  leaving.  It  was  evident 
that  they  had  passed  the  water-shed,  and  the  train 
was  descending.  In  a  few  minutes  they  would 
be  at  Glacier. 

She  roused  herself  to  hold  a  rapid  consultation 
over  plans. 

They  must  of  course  do  as  they  were  advised, 
and  spend  the  night  at  Glacier. 

The  train  drew  up. 

"Well,  of  all  the  nuisances!"  —  cried  Philip, 
disgusted,  as  they  prepared  to  leave  the  car. 

Yerkes,  like  the  showman  that  he  was,  began  to 
descant  volubly  on  the  advantages  and  charms 
of  the  hotel,  its  Swiss  guides,  and  the  distinguished 
travellers  who  stayed  there;  dragging  rugs  and 
bags  meanwhile  out  of  the  car.     Nobody  listened 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       237 

to  him.  Everybody  in  the  Httle  party,  as  they 
stood  forlornly  on  the  platform,  was  in  truth  search- 
ing for  Anderson. 

And  at  last  he  came  —  hurrying  along  towards 
them.  His  face,  set,  strained,  and  colourless, 
bore  the  stamp  of  calamity.  But  he  gave  them 
no  time  to  question  him. 

"I  am  going  on,"  he  said  hastily  to  Elizabeth; 
"they  will  look  after  you  here.  I  will  arrange 
everything  for  you  as  soon  as  possible,  and  if  we 
don't  meet  before,  perhaps  —  in  Vancouver " 

"I  say,  are  you  going  to  hunt  the  robbers?" 
asked  Philip,  catching  his  arm. 

Anderson  made  no  reply.  He  turned  to  Delaine, 
drew  him  aside  a  moment,  and  put  a  letter  into  his 
hand. 

"  My  father  was  one  of  them,"  he  said,  without 
emotion,  **and  is  dead.  I  have  asked  you  to  tell 
Lady  Merton." 

There  was  a  call  for  him.  The  train  was 
already  moving.  He  jumped  into  it,  and  was 
gone. 


CHAPTER  XII 

The  station  and  hotel  at  Sicamous  Junction, 
overlooking  the  lovely  Mara  lake,  were  full  of 
people  —  busy  officials  of  diflPerent  kinds,  or 
excited  on-lookers  —  when  Anderson  reached 
them.  The  long  summer  day  was  just  passing 
into  a  night  that  was  rather  twilight  than  dark- 
ness, and  in  the  lower  country  the  heat  was  great. 
Far  away  to  the  north  stretched  the  wide  and 
straggling  waters  of  another  and  larger  lake. 
Woods  of  poplar  and  cottonwood  grew  along  its 
swampy  shore,  and  hills,  forest  clad,  held  it  in 
a  shallow  cup  flooded  with  the  mingled  light  of 
sunset  and  moonlight. 

Anderson  was  met  by  a  district  superintendent, 
of  the  name  of  Dixon,  as  he  descended  from  the 
train.  The  young  man,  with  whom  he  was 
slightly  acquainted,  looked  at  him  with  excite- 
ment. 

"This  is  a  precious  bad  business!  If  you  can 
throw  any  light  upon  it,  Mr.  Anderson,  we  shall 
be  uncommonly  obliged  to  you " 

Anderson  interrupted  him. 


2Zii 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       239 

"Is  the  inquest  to  be  held  here  ?" 

"Certainly.  The  bodies  were  brought  in  a 
few  hours  ago." 

His  companion  pointed  to  a  shed  beyond  the 
station.  They  walked  thither,  the  Superintend- 
ent describing  in  detail  the  attack  on  the  train 
and  the  measures  taken  for  the  capture  of  the 
marauders,  Anderson  listening  in  silence.  The 
affair  had  taken  place  early  that  morning,  but  the 
telegraph  wires  had  been  cut  in  several  places 
on  both  sides  of  the  damaged  line,  so  that  no 
precise  news  of  what  had  happened  had  reached 
either  Vancouver  on  the  west,  or  Golden  on  the 
east,  till  the  afternoon.  The  whole  countryside 
was  now  in  movement,  and  a  vigorous  man-hunt 
was  proceeding  on  both  sides  of  the  line. 

"  There  is  no  doubt  the  whole  thing  was  planned 
by  a  couple  of  men  from  Montana,  one  of  whom 
was  certainly  concerned  in  the  hold-up  there  a 
few  months  ago  and  got  clean  away.  But  there 
were  six  or  seven  of  them  altogether  and  most 
of  the  rest  —  we  suspect  —  from  this  side  of  the 
boundary.  The  old  man  who  was  killed"  — 
Anderson  raised  his  eyes  abruptly  to  the  speaker 
—  "seems  to  have  come  from  Nevada.  There 
were  some  cuttings  from  a  Nevada  newspaper 
feund  upon  him,  besides  the  envelope  addressed 
to  you,  of  which  I  sent  you  word  at  Roger's  Pass. 


240       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

Could  you  recognise  anything  in  my  description 
of  the  man  ?  There  was  one  thing  I  forgot  to  say. 
He  had  evidently  been  in  the  doctor's  hands  lately. 
There  is  a  surgical  bandage  on  the  right  ankle.'* 

"Was  there  nothing  in  the  envelope?"  asked 
Anderson,  putting  the  question  aside,  in  spite 
of  the  evident  eagerness  of  the  questioner. 

"Nothing." 

"And  where  is  kV 

"It  was  given  to  the  Kamloops  coroner,  who 
has  just  arrived."  Anderson  said  nothing  more. 
They  had  reached  the  shed,  which  his  companion 
unlocked.  Inside  were  two  rough  tables  on 
trestles  and  lying  on  them  two  sheeted  forms. 

Dixon  uncovered  the  first,  and  Anderson  looked 
steadily  down  at  the  face  underneath.  Death 
had  wrought  its  strange  ironic  miracle  once  more, 
and  out  of  the  face  of  an  outcast  had  made  the 
face  of  a  sage.  There  was  little  disfigurement; 
the  eyes  were  closed  with  dignity;  the  mouth 
seemed  to  have  unlearnt  its  coarseness.  Silently 
the  tension  of  Anderson's  inner  being  gave  way; 
he  was  conscious  of  a  passionate  acceptance  of 
the  mere  stillness  and  dumbness  of  death. 

"Where  was  the  wound?"  he  asked,  stooping 
over  the  body. 

"Ah,  that  was  the  strange  thing!  He  didn't 
die  of  his  wound   at  all!     It  was  a   mere  graze 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       241 

on  the  arm."  The  Superintendent  pointed  to  a 
rent  on  the  coat-sleeve.  "  He  died  of  something: 
quite  different  —  perhaps  excitement  and  a  weak 
heart.     There  may  have  to  be  a  post-mortem." 

"I  doubt  whether  that  will  be  necessary,"  said 
Anderson. 

The  other  looked  at  him  with  undisguised 
curiosity. 

"Then  you  do  recognise  him.?" 
*'  I  will  tell  the  coroner  what  I  know." 
Anderson  drew  back  from  his  close  examination 
of  the  dead  face,  and  began  in  his  turn  to  question 
the  Superintendent.  Was  it  certain  that  this 
man  had  been  himself  concerned  in  the  hold-up 
and  in  the  struggle  with  the  police  ? 

Dixon  could  not  see  how  there  could  be  any 
doubt  of  it.  The  constables  who  had  rushed  in 
upon  the  gang  while  they  were  still  looting  the 
express  car  —  the  brakesman  having  managed  to 
get  away  and  convey  the  alarm  to  Kamloops  — 
remembered  seeing  an  old  man  with  white  hair, 
apparently  lame,  at  the  rear  of  the  more  active 
thieves,  and  posted  as  sentinel.  He  had  been  the 
first  to  give  w^arning  of  the  police  approach,  and 
had  levelled  his  revolver  at  the  foremost  constable 
but  had  missed  his  shot.  In  the  free  firing  which 
had  followed  nobody  exactly  knew  what  had  hap- 
pened.    One   of  the   attacking   force,    Constable 


242       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

Brown,  had  fallen,  and  while  his  comrades  were 
attempting  to  save  him,  the  thieves  had  dropped 
down  the  steep  bank  of  the  river  close  by,  into  a 
boat  waiting  for  them,  and  got  off.  The  constable 
was  left  dead  upon  the  ground,  and  not  far  from 
him  lay  the  old  man,  also  lifeless.  But  when  they 
came  to  examine  the  bodies,  while  the  constable 
was  shot  through  the  head,  the  other  had  received 
nothing  but  the  trifling  wound  Dixon  had  already 
pointed  out. 

Anderson  Hstened  to  the  story  in  silence.  Then 
with  a  last  long  look  at  the  rigid  features  below 
him,  he  replaced  the  covering.  Passing  on  to  the 
other  table,  he  raised  the  sheet  from  the  face  of 
a  splendid  young  Englishman,  whom  he  had  last 
seen  the  week  before  at  Regina;  an  English  public- 
school  boy  of  the  manliest  type,  full  of  hope  for 
himself,  and  of  enthusiasm,  both  for  Canada  and 
for  the  fine  body  of  men  in  Vs^hich  he  had  been  just 
promoted.  For  the  first  time  a  stifled  groan 
escaped  from  Anderson's  lips.  What  hand  had 
done  this  murder  ? 

They  left  the  shed.  Anderson  inquired  what 
doctor  had  been  sent  for.  He  recognised  the 
name  given  as  that  of  a  Kamloops  man  whom  he 
knew  and  respected;  and  he  went  on  to  look  for 
him  at  the  hotel. 

For  some  time  he  and  the  doctor  paced  a  trail 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       243 

beside  the  line  together.  Among  other  facts  that 
Anderson  got  from  this  conversation,  he  learnt 
that  the  American  authorities  had  been  tele- 
graphed to,  and  that  a  couple  of  deputy  sheriffs 
were  coming  to  assist  the  Canadian  pohce.  They 
were  expected  the  following  morning,  when  also 
the  coroner's  inquest  would  be  held. 

As  to  Anderson's  own  share  in  the  interview, 
when  the  two  men  parted,  with  a  silent  grasp  of 
the  hand,  the  Doctor  had  nothing  to  say  to  the 
bystanders,  except  that  Mr.  Anderson  would  have 
some  evidence  to  give  on  the  morrow,  and  that, 
for  himself,  he  was  not  at  liberty  to  divulge  what 
had  passed  between  them. 

It  was  by  this  time  late.  Anderson  shut  himself 
up  in  his  room  at  the  hotel;  but  among  the  groups 
lounging  at  the  bar  or  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  station  excitement  and  discussion  ran  high. 
The  envelope  addressed  to  Anderson,  Anderson's 
own  demeanour  since  his  arrival  on  the  scene  — 
with  the  meaning  of  both  conjecture  was  busy. 

Towards  midnight  a  train  arrived  from  Field. 
A  messenger  from  the  station  knocked  at  Ander- 
son's door  with  a  train  letter.  Anderson  locked 
the  door  again  behind  the  man  who  had  brought 
it,  and  stood  looking  at  it  a  moment  in  silence. 
It  was  from  Lady  Merton.     He  opened  it  slowly, 


244       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

took  It  to  the  small  deal  table,  which  held  a  paraffin 
lamp,  and  sat  down  to  read  it. 

"Dear  Mr.  Anderson  —  Mr.  Delaine  has  given 
me  your  message  and  read  me  some  of  your  letter 
to  him.  He  has  also  told  me  what  he  knew  before 
this  happened  —  we  understood  that  you  wished 
it.  Oh!  I  cannot  say  how  very  sorry  we  are, 
Philip  and  I,  for  your  great  trouble.  It  makes 
me  sore  at  heart  to  think  that  all  the  time  you  have 
been  looking  after  us  so  kindly,  taking  this  infinite 
pains  for  us,  you  have  had  this  heavy  anxiety 
on  your  mind.  Oh,  why  didn't  you  tell  me!  I 
thought  we  were  to  be  friends.  And  now  this 
tragedy!  It  is  terrible  —  terrible!  Your  father 
has  been  his  own  worst  enemy  —  and  at  last 
death  has  come  —  and  he  has  escaped  himself. 
Is  there  not  some  comfort  in  that  ^  And  you 
tried  to  save  him.  I  can  imagine  all  that  you  have 
been  doing  and  planning  for  him.  It  is  not  lost, 
dear  Mr.  Anderson.  No  love  and  pity  are  ever 
lost.  They  are  undying  —  for  they  are  God's 
life  in  us.  They  are  the  pledge  —  the  sign  — 
to  which  He  is  eternally  bound.  He  will  surely, 
surely,  redeem  —  and  fulfil. 

"I  write  incoherently,  for  they  are  waiting  for 
my  letter.  I  want  you  to  write  to  me,  if  you  will. 
And  when  will  you  come  back  to  us  ^  We  shall, 
I  think,  be  two  or  three  days  here,  for  Philip  has 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       245 

made  friends  with  a  man  we  have  met  here  —  a 
surveyor,  who  has  been  camping  high  up,  and 
shooting  wild  goat.  He  is  determined  to  go  for 
an  expedition  with  him,  and  I  had  to  telegraph 
to  the  Lieutenant-Governor  to  ask  him  not  to 
expect  us  till  Thursday.  So  if  you  were  to  come 
back  here  before  then  you  would  still  find  us. 
I  don't  know  that  I  could  be  of  any  use  to  you,  or 
any  consolation  to  you.     But,  indeed,  I  would  try. 

"To-morrow  I  am  told  will  be  the  inquest. 
My  thoughts  will  be  with  you  constantly.  By 
now  you  will  have  determined  on  your  line  of 
action.  I  only  know  that  it  will  be  noble  and 
upright  —  like  yourself. 

"I  remain,  yours  most  sincerely, 
"Elizabeth  Merton." 

Anderson  pressed  the  letter  to  his  lips.  Its 
tender  philosophising  found  no  echo  in  his  own 
mind.     But  it  soothed,  because  it  came  from  her. 

He  lay  dressed  and  wakeful  on  his  bed  through 
the  night,  and  at  nine  next  morning  the  inquest 
opened,  in  the  coffee-room  of  the  hotel. 

The  body  of  the  young  constable  was  first 
identified.  As  to  the  hand  which  had  fired  the 
shot  that  killed  him,  there  was  no  certain  evidence; 
one  of  the  police  had  seen  the  lame  man  with  the 
white  hair  level  his  revolver  again  after  the  first 
miss;   but   there   was   much   shooting  going  on, 


246       LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST 

and  no  one  could  be  sure  from  what  quarter  the 
fatal  bullet  had  come. 

The  court  then  proceeded  to  the  identification 
of  the  dead  robber.  The  coroner,  a  rancher  who 
bred  the  best  horses  in  the  district,  called  first 
upon  two  strangers  in  plain  clothes,  who  had 
arrived  by  the  first  train  from  the  South  that 
morning.  They  proved  to  be  the  two  officers 
from  Nevada.  They  had  already  examined  the 
body,  and  they  gave  clear  and  unhesitating 
evidence,  identifying  the  old  man  as  one  Alex- 
ander McEwen,  well  known  to  the  police  of  the 
silver-mining  State  as  a  lawless  and  dangerous 
character.  He  had  been  twice  in  jail,  and  had 
been  the  associate  of  the  notorious  Bill  Symonds 
in  one  or  two  criminal  affairs  connected  with 
"faked"  claims  and  the  like.  The  elder  of  the 
two  officers  in  particular  drew  a  vivid  and 
damning  picture  of  the  man's  life  and  personality, 
of  the  cunning  with  which  he  had  evaded  the  law, 
and  the  ruthlessness  with  which  he  had  avenged 
one  or  two  private  grudges. 

"We  have  reason  to  suppose,"  said  the  American 
officer  finally,  "that  McEwen  was  not  originally 
a  native  of  the  States.  We  believe  that  he  came 
from  Dawson  City  or  the  neighbourhood  about 
ten  years  ago,  and  that  he  crossed  the  border  in 
consequence  of  a  mysterious  affair  —  which  has 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       247 

never  been  cleared  up  —  in  which  a  rich  German 
gentleman,  Baron  von  Aeschenbach,  disappeared, 
and  has  not  been  heard  of  since.  Of  that,  how- 
ever, we  have  no  proof,  and  we  cannot  supply 
the  court  with  any  information  as  to  the  man's 
real  origin  and  early  history.  But  we  are  prepared 
to  swear  that  the  body  we  have  seen  this  morning 
is  that  of  Alexander  McEwen,  who  for  some  years 
past  has  been  well  known  to  us,  now  in  one  camp, 
now  in  another,  of  the  Comstock  district." 

The  American  police  officer  resumed  his  seat. 
George  Anderson,  who  was  to  the  right  of  the 
coroner,  had  sat,  all  through  this  witness's  evi- 
dence, bending  forward,  his  eyes  on  the  ground, 
his  hands  clasped  between  his  knees.  There 
was  something  in  the  rigidity  of  his  attitude, 
which  gradually  compelled  the  attention  of  the 
onlookers,  as  though  the  perception  gained  ground 
that  here  —  in  that  stillness  —  those  bowed 
shoulders  —  lay  the  real  interest  of  this  sordid 
outrage,  which  had  so  affronted  the  pride  of 
Canada's  great  railway. 

The  coroner  rose.  He  briefly  expressed  the 
thanks  of  the  court  to  the  Nevada  State  authorities 
for  having  so  promptly  supplied  the  information 
in  their  possession  in  regard  to  this  man 
McEwen.  He  would  now  ask  Mr.  George  Ander- 
son, of  the  C.   P.   R.,  whether  he  could  in  any 


248       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

way  assist  the  court  in  this  investigation.  An 
empty  envelope,  fully  addressed  to  Mr.  George 
Anderson,  Ginnell's  Boarding  House,  Laggan, 
Alberta,  had,  strangely  enough,  been  found  in 
McEwen's  pocket.  Could  Mr.  Anderson  throw 
any  light  upon  the  matter  ? 

Anderson  stood  up  as  the  coroner  handed  him 
the  envelope.  He  took  it,  looked  at  it,  and  slowly 
put  it  down  on  the  table  before  him.  He  was 
perfectly  composed,  but  there  was  that  in  his 
aspect  which  instantly  hushed  all  sounds  in  the 
crowded  room,  and  drew  the  eyes  of  everybody 
in  it  upon  him.  The  Kamloops  doctor  looked  at 
him  from  a  distance  with  a  sudden  twitching 
smile  —  the  smile  of  a  reticent  man  in  whom 
strong  feeling  must  somehow  find  a  physical 
expression.  Dixon,  the  young  Superintendent, 
bent  forward  eagerly.  At  the  back  of  the  room 
a  group  of  Japanese  railway  workers,  with  their 
round,  yellow  faces  and  half-opened  eyes  stared 
impassively  at  the  tall  figure  of  the  fair-haired 
Canadian;  and  through  windows  and  doors, 
thrown  open  to  the  heat,  shimmered  lake  and 
forest,  the  eternal  background  of  Canada. 

"Mr.  Coroner,"  said  Anderson,  straightening 
himself  to  his  full  height,  "the  name  of  the  man 
into  whose  death  you  are  inquiring  is  not  Alexan- 
der McEwen.     He  came  from  Scotland  to  Mani- 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       249 

toba  in  1 869.    His  real  name  was  Robert  Anderson, 
and  I  —  am  his  son." 

The    coroner    gave    an    involuntary    "Ah!"  of 
amazement,  which  was  echoed,  it  seemed,  through- 
out the  room. 

On  one  of  the  small  deal  tables  belonging  to 
the  coffee-room,  which  had  been  pushed  aside 
to  make  room  for  the  sitting  of  the  court,  lay  the 
newspapers  of  the  morning  —  the  Vancouver 
Sentinel  and  the  Montreal  Star.  Both  con- 
tained short  and  flattering  articles  on  the  important 
Commission  entrusted  to  Mr.  George  Anderson  by 
the  Prime  Minister.  "A  great  compliment  to  so 
young  a  man,"  said  the  Star,  "but  one  amply 
deserved  by  Mr.  Anderson's  record.  We  look 
forward  on  his  behalf  to  a  brilliant  career,  honour- 
able both  to  himself  and  to  Canada." 

Several  persons  had  already  knocked  at 
Anderson's  door  early  that  morning  in  order  to 
congratulate  him;  but  without  finding  him. 
And  this  honoured  and  fortunate  person ^. 

Men  pushed  each  other  forward  in  their  eager- 
ness not  to  lose  a  word,  or  a  shade  of  expression  on 
the  pale  face  which  confronted  them. 

Anderson,  after  a  short  pause,  as  though  to 
collect  himself,  gave  the  outlines  of  his  father's 
early  history,  of  the  farm  in  Manitoba,  the  fire 
and  its  consequences,  the  breach  between  Robert 


250       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

Anderson  and  his  sons.  He  described  the  struggle 
of  the  three  boys  on  the  farm,  their  migration  to 
Montreal  in  search  of  education,  and  his  own  later 
sojourn  in  the  Yukon,  with  the  evidence  which 
had  convinced  him  of  his  father's  death. 

"Then,  only  a  fortnight  ago,  he  appeared  at 
Laggan  and  made  himself  known  to  me,  having 
followed  me  apparently  from  Winnipeg.  He 
seemed  to  be  in  great  poverty,  and  in  bad  health. 
If  he  had  wished  it,  I  was  prepared  to  acknow- 
ledge him;  but  he  seemed  not  to  wish  it;  there 
were  no  doubt  reasons  why  he  preferred  to  keep 
his  assumed  name.  I  did  what  I  could  for  him, 
and  arrangements  had  been  made  to  put  him 
with  decent  people  at  Vancouver.  But  last 
Wednesday  night  he  disappeared  from  the  board- 
ing house  where  he  and  I  were  both  lodging,  and 
various  persons  here  will  know"  — he  glanced  at 
one  or  two  faces  in  the  ring  before  him  —  "that 
I  have  been  making  inquiries  since,  with  no  result. 
As  to  what  or  who  led  him  into  this  horrible 
business,  I  know  nothing.  The  Nevada  deputies 
have  told  you  that  he  was  acquainted  with 
Symonds  —  a  fact  unknown  to  me  —  and  I 
noticed  on  one  or  two  occasions  that  he  seemed 
to  have  acquaintances  among  the  men  tramping 
west  to  the  Kootenay  district.  I  can  only  imagine 
that    after    his    success    in    Montana    last    year. 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       251 

Symonds  made  up  his  mind  to  try  the  same  game 
on  the  C.  P.  R.,  and  that  during  the  last  fortnight 
he  came  somehow  into  communication  with  my 
father.  My  father  must  have  been  aware  of 
Symonds's  plans  —  and  may  have  been  unable  at 
the  last  to  resist  the  temptation  to  join  in  the 
scheme.     As  to  all  that  I  am  entirely  in  the  dark." 

I^e  paused,  and  then,  looking  down,  he  added, 
under  his  breath,  as  though  involuntarily  — 
*'  I  pray  —  that  he  may  not  have  been  concerned 
in  the  murder  of  poor  Brown.  But  there  is  —  I 
think  —  no  evidence  to  connect  him  with  it.  I 
shall  be  glad  to  answer  to  the  best  of  my  power 
any  questions  that  the  court  may  wish  to  put." 

He  sat  down  heavily,  very  pale,  but  entirely 
collected.  The  room  watched  him  a  moment, 
and  then  a  friendly,  encouraging  murmur  seemed 
to  rise  from  the  crowd  —  to  pass  from  them  to 
Anderson. 

The  coroner,  who  was  an  old  friend  of  Ander- 
son's, fidgeted  a  little  and  in  silence.  He  took 
off"  his  glasses  and  put  them  on  again.  His 
tanned  face,  long  and  slightly  twisted,  with  square 
harsh  brows,  and  powerful  jaw  set  in  a  white 
fringe  of  whisker,  showed  an  unusual  amount  of 
disturbance.  At  last  he  said,  clearing  his  throat: 
"We  are  much  obliged  to  you,  Mr.  Anderson, 
for  your  frankness  towards  this  court.     There's 


252       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

not  a  man  here  that  don't  feel  for  you,  and*  don't 
wish  to  offer  you  his  respectful  sympathy.  We 
know  you  —  and  I  reckon  we  know  what  to  think 
about  you.  Gentlemen,"  he  spoke  with  nasal 
deliberation,  looking  round  the  court,  "I  think 
that's  so  ?" 

A  shout  of  consent  —  the  shout  of  men  deeply 
moved  —  went  up.  Anderson,  who  had  resumed 
his  former  attitude,  appeared  to  take  no  notice,  and 
the  coroner  resumed. 

"I  will  now  call  on  Mrs.  Ginnell  to  give  her 
evidence." 

The  Irishwoman  rose  with  alacrity  —  what  she 
had  to  say  held  the  audience.  The  surly  yet 
good-hearted  creature  was  divided  between  her 
wish  to  do  justice  to  the  demerits  of  McEwen, 
whom  she  had  detested,  and  her  fear  of  hurting 
Anderson's  feelings  in  public.  Beneath  her  rough 
exterior,  she  carried  some  of  the  delicacies  of  Celtic 
feeling,  and  she  had  no  sooner  given  some  fact 
that  showed  the  coarse  dishonesty  of  the  father, 
than  she  veered  off  in  haste  to  describe  the  pathetic 
efforts  of  the  son.  Her  homely  talk  told;  the 
picture  grew. 

Meanwhile  Anderson  sat  impatient  or  benumbed, 
annoyed  with  Mrs.  Ginnell's  garrulity,  and  longing 
for  the  whole  thing  to  end.  He  had  a  letter  to 
write  to  Ottawa  before  post-time. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       253 

When  the  verdicts  had  been  given,  the  doctor 
and  he  walked  away  from  the  court  together.  The 
necessary  formahties  were  carried  through,  a 
coffin  ordered,  and  provision  made  for  the  burial 
of  Robert  Anderson.  As  the  two  men  passed 
once  or  twice  through  the  groups  now  lounging 
and  smoking  as  before  outside  the  hotel,  all  con- 
versation ceased,  and  all  eyes  follow^ed  Anderson. 
Sincere  pity  was  felt  for  him;  and  at  the  same  time 
men  asked  each  other  anxiously  how  the  revelation 
would  affect  his  political  and  other  chances. 

Late  in  the  same  evening;  the  burial  of  McEwen 
took  place.  A  congregational  minister  at  the 
graveside  said  a  prayer  for  mercy  on  the  sinner. 
Anderson  had  not  asked  him  to  do  it,  and  felt  a 
dull  resentment  of  the  man's  officiousness,  and 
the  unctious  length  of  his  prayer.  Half  an  hour 
later  he  was  on  the  platform,  waiting  for  the  train 
to  Glacier. 

He  arrived  there  in  the  first  glorious  dawn  of 
a  summer  morning.  Over  the  vast  Illecillowaet 
glacier  rosy  feather-clouds  were  floating  in  a  crystal 
air,  beneath  a  dome  of  pale  blue.  Light  mists 
rose  from  the  forests  and  the  course  of  the  river, 
and  above  them  shone  the  dazzling  snows,  the 
hanging  glaciers,  and  glistening  rock  faces,  ledge 
piled  on   ledge,  of  the  Selkirk  giants  —  Hermit 


254       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

and  Tupper,  Avalanche  and  Sir  Donald  —  with 
that  cleft  of  the  pass  between. 

The  pleasant  hotel,  built  to  offer  as  much  shelter 
and  comfort  as  possible  to  the  tired  traveller  and 
climber,  was  scarcely  awake.  A  sleepy-eyed 
Japanese  showed  Anderson  to  his  room.  He 
threw  himself  on  the  bed,  longing  for  sleep,  yet 
incapable  of  it.  He  was  once  more  under  the 
same  roof  with  Elizabeth  Merton  —  and  for  the 
last  time!  He  longed  for  her  presence,  her  look, 
her  touch;  and  yet  with  equal  intensity  he  shrank 
from  seeing  her.  That  very  morning  through  the 
length  of  Canada  and  the  States  would  go  out  the 
news  of  the  train-robbery  on  the  main  line  of 
the  C.  P.  R.,  and  with  it  the  "dramatic"  story 
of  himself  and  his  father,  made  more  dramatic  by 
a  score  of  reporters.  And  as  the  news  of  his 
appointment,  in  the  papers  of  the  day  before, 
had  made  him  a  public  person,  and  had  been  no 
doubt  telegraphed  to  London  and  Europe,  so 
also  would  it  be  with  the  news  of  the  "  hold-up," 
and  his  own  connection  with  it;  partly  because  it 
had  happened  on  the  C.  P.  R.;  still  more  because 
of  the  prominence  given  to  his  name  the  day  before. 

He  felt  himself  a  disgraced  man;  and  he  had 
already  put  from  him  all  thought  of  a  public 
career.  Yet  he  wondered,  not  without  self-con- 
tempt,  as  he  lay  there  in  the  broadening  light, 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       255 

what  it  was  in  truth  that  made  the  enormous 
difference  between  this  Monday  and  the  Monday 
before.  His  father  was  dead,  and  had  died  in 
the  very  commission  of  a  criminal  act.  But  all  or 
nearly  all  that  Anderson  knew  now  about  his  char- 
acter he  had  known  before  this  happened.  The 
details  given  by  the  Nevada  officers  were  indeed 
new  to  him;  but  he  had  shrewdly  suspected  all 
alono-  that  the  record,  did  he  know  it,  would  be 
something  like  that.  If  such  a  parentage  in  itself 
involves  stain  and  degradation,  the  stain  and 
degradation  had  been  always  there,  and  the 
situation,  looked  at  philosophically,  was  no 
worse  for  the  catastrophe  which  had  intervened 
between  this  week  and  last. 

And  yet  it  was  of  course  immeasurably  worse! 
Such  is  the  "bubble  reputation"  — the  difference 
betv/een  the  known  and  the  unknown. 

At  nine  o'clock  a  note  was  brought  to  his  room: 

"Will  you  breakfast  with  me  in  half  an  hour? 
You  will  find  me  alone. 

"E.  M." 

Before  the  clock  struck  the  half-hour,  Elizabeth 
was  already  waiting  for  her  guest, listening  for  every 
sound.     She  too  had  been  awake  half  the  night. 

When  he  came  in  she  went  up  to  him,  with  her 
quick-tripping  step,  holding  out  both  her  hands; 
and  he  saw  that  her  eyes  were  full  of  tears. 


256       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

"I  am  so  —  so  sorry!"  was  all  she  could  say. 
He  looked  into  her  eyes,  and  as  her  hands  lay  in 
his  he  stooped  suddenly  and  kissed  them.  There 
was  a  great  piteousness  in  his  expression,  and  she 
felt  through  every  nerve  the  humihation  and  the 
moral  weariness  which  oppressed  him.  Suddenly 
she  recalled  that  first  moment  of  intimacy  between 
them  when  he  had  so  brusquely  warned  her  about 
Philip,  and  she  had  been  wounded  by  his  mere 
strength  and  fearlessness;  and  it  hurt  her  to  realise 
the  contrast  between  that  strength  and  this  weak- 
ness. 

She  made  him  sit  down  beside  her  in  the  broad 
window  of  her  little  sitting-room,  which  over- 
looked the  winding  valley  with  the  famous  loops  of 
the  descending  railway,  and  the  moving  light  and 
shade  on  the  forest;  and  very  gently  and  tenderly 
she  made  him  tell  her  all  the  story  from  first  to  last. 

His  shrinking  passed  away,  soothed  by  her 
sweetness,  her  restrained  emotion,  and  after  a 
little  he  talked  with  freedom,  gradually  recovering 
his  normal  steadiness  and  clearness  of  mind. 

At  the  same  time  she  perceived  some  great 
change  in  him.  The  hidden  spring  of  melancholy 
in  his  nature,  which,  amid  all  his  practical  energies 
and  activities,  she  had  always  discerned,  seemed 
to  have  overleaped  its  barriers,  and  to  be  invading 
the  landmarks  of  character. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       257 

At  the  end  of  his  narrative  he  said  something 
in  a  hurried,  low  voice  which  gave  her  a  clue. 

*'I  did  what  I  could  to  help  him  —  but  my 
father  hated  me.  He  died  hating  me.  Nothing 
I  could  do  altered  him.  Had  he  reason  ^  When 
my  brother  and  I  in  our  anger  thought  we  were 
avensing:  our  mother's  death,  were  we  in  truth 
destroying  him  also  —  driving  him  into  wickedness 
beyond  hope  ?  Were  we  —  was  I  —  for  I  was 
the  eldest  —  responsible  ?  Does  his  death,  moral 
and  physical,  lie  at  my  door.?" 

He  raised  his  eyes  to  her  —  his  tired  appealing 
eyes  —  and  Elizabeth  realised  sharply  how  deep 
a  hold  such  questionings  take  on  such  a  man. 
She  tried  to  argue  with  and  comfort  him  —  and 
he  seemed  to  absorb,  to  listen  —  but  in  the  middle 
of  it,  he  said  abruptly,  as  though  to  change  the 
subject: 

"And  I  confess  the  publicity  has  hit  me  hard. 
It  may  be  cowardly,  but  I  can't  face  it  for  a  while. 
I  think  I  told  you  I  owned  some  land  in  Saskatch- 
ewan.    I    shall    eo    and    settle    down   on   it    at 


to 

once." 


"And  give  up  your  appointment  —  your  public 
life  ?"  she  cried  in  dismay. 

He  smiled  at  her  faintly,  as  though  trying  to 
console  her. 

"Yes;  I  shan't  be  missed,  and  I  shall  do  better 


258       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

by  myself.  I  understand  the  wheat  and  the  land. 
They  are  friends  that  don't  fail  one." 

Elizabeth  flushed. 

"Mr.  Anderson! — you  mustn't  give  up  your 
work.     Canada  asks  it  of  you." 

"  I  shall  only  be  changing  my  work.  A  man 
can  do  nothing  better  for  Canada  than  break  up 
land." 

"You  can  do  that  —  and  other  things  besides. 
Please  —  please  —  do  nothing  rash!" 

She  bent  over  to  him,  her  brown  eyes  full  of 
entreaty,  her  hand  laid  gently,  timidly  on  his. 

He  could  not  bear  to  distress  her  —  but  he  must. 

"I  sent  in  my  resignation  yesterday  to  the 
Prime  Minister." 

The  delicate  face  beside  him  clouded. 

"He  won't  accept  it." 

Anderson  shook  his  head.     "I  think  he  must." 

Elizabeth  looked  at  him  in  despair. 

"Oh!  no.  You  oughtn't  to  do  this  —  indeed, 
indeed  you  oughtn't.  It  is  covv^^ardly  —  forgive 
me!  —  unworthy  of  you.  Oh!  can't  you  see  how 
the  sympathy  of  everybody  who  knows  —  every- 
body whose  opinion  you  care  for " 

She  stopped  a  moment,  colouring  deeply, 
checked  indeed  by  the  thought  of  a  conversation 
between  herself  and  Philip  of  the  night  before. 
Anderson  interrupted  her: 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       259 

"  The  sympathy  of  one  person,"  he  said  hoarsely, 
"is  very  precious  to  me.     But  even  for  her " 

She  held  out  her  hands  to  him  again  implor- 
ingly — 

"Even  for  her? " 

But  instead  of  taking  the  hands  he  rose  and 
went  out  on  the  balcony  a  moment,  as  though  to 
look  at  the  great  view.  Then  he  returned,  and 
stood  over  her. 

"Lady  Merton,  I  am  afraid  —  it's  no  use. 
We   are   not  —  we   can't   be  —  friends." 

"Not  friends.'"'  she  said,  her  lip  quivering. 
"I  thought  I " 

He  looked  down  steadily  on  her  upturned  face. 
His  own  spoke  eloquently  enough.  Turning  her 
head  away,  with  fluttering  breath,  she  began  to 
speak  fast  and  brokenly: 

"I,  too,  have  been  very  lonely.  I  want  a  friend 
whom  I  might  help  —  who  would  help  me.  Why 
should  you  refuse  ?  We  are  not  either  of  us  quite 
young;  what  we  undertook  we  could  carry  through. 
Since  my  husband's  death  I  —  I  have  been  playing 
at  life.  I  have  always  been  hungry,  dissatisfied, 
discontented.  There  were  such  splendid  things 
going  on  in  the  world,  and  I  —  I  was  just  marking 
time.  Nothing  to  do!  —  as  much  money  as  I 
could  possibly  want  —  society  of  course  —  travel- 
ling —  and  visiting  —  and  amusing  myself  —  but 


26o       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

oh!  so  tired  all  the  time.  And  somehow  Canada 
has  been  a  great  revelation  of  real,  strong,  living 
things  —  this  great  Northwest  —  and  you,  who 
seemed  to  explain  it  to  me " 

"Dear  Lady  Merton!"  His  tone  was  low  and 
full  of  emotion.  And  this  time  it  was  he  who 
stooped  and  took  her  unresisting  hands  in  his. 
She  went  on  in  the  same  soft,  pleading  tone  — 

"  I  felt  what  it  might  be  —  to  help  in  the 
building  up  a  better  human  life  —  in  this  vast 
new  country.  God  has  given  to  you  this  task  — 
such  a  noble  task!  —  and  through  your  friendship, 
I  too  seemed  to  have  a  little  part  in  it,  if  only  by 
sympathy.  Oh,  no!  you  mustn't  turn  back  — 
you  mustn't  shrink  —  because  of  what  has  hap- 
pened to  you.  And  let  me,  from  a  distance, 
watch  and  help.  It  will  ennoble  my  life,  too. 
Let  me!"  — she  smiled  —  "I  shall  make  a  good 
friend,  you'll  see.  I  shall  write  very  often.  I 
shall  argue  —  and  criticise  —  and  want  a  great 
deal  of  explaining.  And  you'll  come  over  to  us, 
and  do  splendid  work,  and  make  many  English 
friends.     Your  strength  will  all  come  back  to  you." 

He  pressed  the  hands  he  held  more  closely. 

"It  is  like  you  to  say  all  this  —  but  —  don't 
let  us  deceive  ourselves.  I  could  not  be  your 
friend,  Lady  Merton.  I  must  not  come  and  see 
you." 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       261 

She  was  silent,  very  pale,  her  eyes  on  his  — 
and  he  went  on: 

"It  is  strange  to  say  it  in  this  way,  at  such  a 
moment;  but  it  seems  as  though  I  had  better  say 
it.  I  have  had  the  audacity,  you  see  —  to  fall 
in  love  with  you.  And  if  it  was  audacity  a  week 
ago,  you  can  guess  what  it  is  now  —  now  when  — 
Ask  your  mother  and  brother  what  they  would 
think  of  it!"  he  said  abruptly,  almost  fiercely. 

There  was  a  moment's  silence.  All  conscious- 
ness, all  feeling  in  each  of  these  two  human  beings 
had  come  to  be  —  with  the  irrevocable  swiftness 
of  love  —  a  consciousness  of  the  other.  Under 
the  sombre  renouncing  passion  of  his  look,  her 
own  eyes  filled  slowly  —  beautifully  —  with  tears. 
And  through  all  his  perplexity  and  pain  there 
shot  a  thrill  of  joy,  of  triumph  even,  sharp  and 
wonderful.  He  understood.  All  this  might  have 
been  his  —  this  delicate  beauty,  this  quick  will, 
this  rare  intelligence  —  and  yet  the  surrender  in 
her  aspect  was  not  the  simple  surrender  of  love; 
he  knew  before  she  spoke  that  she  did  not  pretend 
to  ignore  the  obstacles  between  them;  that  she 
was  not  going  to  throw  herself  upon  his  renuncia- 
tion, trying  vehemently  to  break  it  down,  in  a  mere 
blind  girlish  impulsiveness.  He  realised  at  once 
her  heart,  and  her  common  sense;  and  was  grateful 
to  her  for  both. 


262       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

Gently  she  drew  herself  away,  drawing  a  long 
breath.  "  My  mother  and  brother  would  not 
decide  those  things  for  me  —  oh,  never!  —  I 
should  decide  them  for  myself.  But  we  are  not 
going  to  talk  of  them  to-day.  We  are  not  going 
to  make  any  —  any  rash  promises  to  each  other. 
It  is  you  we  must  think  for  —  your  future  — 
your  life.  And  then  —  if  you  won't  give  me  a 
friend's  right  to  speak  —  you  will  be  unkind  — 
and  I  shall  respect  you  less." 

She  threw  back  her  little  head  with  vivacity. 
In  the  gesture  he  saw  the  strength  of  her  will  and 
his  own  wavered. 

"How  can  it  be  unkind  V  he  protested.  "You 
ought  not  to  be  troubled  with  me  any  more." 

"  Let  me  be  judge  of  that.  If  you  will  persist 
in  giving  up  this  appointment,  promise  me  at 
least  to  come  to  England.  That  will  break  this 
spell  of  this  —  this  terrible  thing,  and  give  you 
courage  —  again.     Promise  me!" 

"No,  no! — you  are  too  good  to  me  —  too 
good;  —  let  it  end  here.  It  is  much,  much 
better  so." 

Then  she  broke  down  a  little. 

She  looked  round  her,  like  some  hurt  creature 
seeking  a  means  of  escape.  Her  lips  trembled. 
She  gave  a  low  cry.  "And  I  have  loved  Canada 
so!     I  have  been  so  happy  here." 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST      263 

"And  now  I  have  hurt  you?  —  I  have  spoilt 
everything?" 

"It  is  your  unhapplness  does  that  —  and  that 
you  will  spoil  your  Hfe.  Promise  me  only  this  one 
thing  —  to  come  to  England!     Promise  me!" 

He  sat  down  in  a  quiet  despair  that  she  would 
urge  him  so.  A  long  argument  followed  between 
them,  and  at  last  she  wore  him  down.  She  dared 
say  nothing  more  of  the  Commissionership;  but 
he  promised  her  to  come  to  England  some  time 
in  the  following  winter;  and  with  that  she  had  to 
be  content. 

Then  she  gave  him  breakfast.  During  their 
conversation,  which  Elizabeth  guided  as  far  as 
possible  to  indifferent  topics,  the  name  of  Mariette 
was  mentioned.  He  was  still,  it  seemed,  at  Van- 
couver. Elizabeth  gave  Anderson  a  sudden  look, 
and  casually,  without  his  noticing,  she  possessed 
herself  of  the  name  of  Mariette's  hotel. 

At  breakfast  also  she  described,  with  a  smile  and 
sigh,  her  brother's  first  and  last  attempt  to  shoot 
wild  goat  in  the  Rockies,  an  expedition  which 
had  ended  in  a  wetting  and  a  chill  —  "luckily 
nothing  much;  but  poor  Phihp  won't  be  out  of 
his  room  to-day." 

"I  will  go  and  see  him,"  said  Anderson,  rising. 

Elizabeth  looked  up,  her  colour  fluttering. 


264      LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

"Mr.  Anderson,  Philip  is  only  a  boy,  and 
sometimes  a  foolish  boy " 

"I  understand,"  said  Anderson  quietly,  after 
a  moment.  "Philip  thinks  his  sister  has  been 
running  risks.     Who  warned  him.?" 

Elizabeth  shrugged  her  shoulders  without  reply- 
ing. He  saw  a  touch  of  scorn  in  her  face  that  was 
new  to  him. 

"I  think  I  guess,"  he  said.  "Why  not.?  It  was 
the  natural  thing.     So  Mr.  Delaine  is  still  here  ?" 

"Till  to-morrow." 

"I  am  glad.  I  shall  like  to  assure  him  that  his 
name  was  not  mentioned  —  he  was  not  involved 
at  all!" 

Elizabeth's  lip  curled  a  little,  but  she  said 
nothing.  During  the  preceding  forty-eight  hours 
there  had  been  passages  between  herself  and 
Delaine  that  she  did  not  intend  Anderson  to 
know  anything  about.  In  his  finical  repug- 
nance to  soiling  his  hands  with  matters  so  dis- 
tasteful. Delaine  had  carried  out  the  embassy 
which  Anderson  had  perforce  entrusted  to  him 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  rouse  in  Elizabeth  a  maxi- 
mum of  pride  on  her  own  account,  and  of  indigna- 
tion on  Anderson's.  She  was  not  even  sorry 
for  him  any  more;  being,  of  course,  therein  a 
little  unjust  to  him,  as  was  natural  to  a  high- 
spirited   and   warm-hearted   woman. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       265 

Anderson,  meanwhile,  went  off  to  knock  at 
Philip's  door,  and  Philip's  sister  was  left  behind 
to  wonder  nervously  how  Philip  would  behave 
and  what  he  would  say.  She  was  still  smarting 
under  the  boy's  furious  outburst  of  the  night 
before  when,  through  a  calculated  indiscretion 
of  Delaine's,  the  notion  that  Anderson  had  pre- 
sumed and  might  still  presume  to  set  his  ambitions 
on  Elizabeth  had  been  presented  to  him  for  the 
first  time. 

**My  sister  marry  a  mining  engineer!  —  with 
a  drunken  old  robber  for  a  father!  By  Jove! 
Anybody  talking  nonsense  of  that  kind  will  jolly 
well  have  to  reckon  with  me!  Elizabeth!  — 
you  may  say  what  you  like,  but  I  am  the  head  of 
the  family!" 

Anderson  found  the  head  of  the  family  in  bed, 
surrounded  by  novels,  and  a  dozen  books  on 
big-game  shooting  in  the  Rockies.  Philip  received 
him  with  an  evident  and  ungracious  embarrass- 
ment. 

"  I  am  awfully  sorry  —  beastly  business.  Hard 
lines  on  you,  of  course  —  very.  Hope  they'll 
get  the  men." 

"Thank  you.     They  are  doing  their  best." 

Anderson  sat  down  beside  the  lad.  The 
fragility   of  his   look   struck   him   painfully,   and 


266      LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

the  pathetic  contrast  between  it  and  the  fretting 
spirit  —  the  books  of  travel  and  adventure  heaped 
round  him. 

"Have  you  been  ill  again?"  he  asked  in  his 
kind,  deep  voice. 

"Oh,  just  a  beastly  chill.  Elizabeth  would 
make  me  take  too  many  wraps.  Everyone  knows 
you  oughtn't  to  get  overheated  walking/' 

"  Do  you  want  to  stay  on  here  longer  V* 

"Not  I!  What  do  I  care  about  glaciers  and 
mountains  and  that  sort  of  stuff  if  I  can't  hunt  ? 
But  Elizabeth's  got  at  the  doctor  somehow,  and 
he  won't  let  me  go  for  three  or  four  days  unless  I 
kick  over  the  traces.     I  daresay  I  shall." 

"No  you  won't  —  for  your  sister*s  sake.  I'll 
see  all  arrangements  are  made." 

Philip  made  no  direct  reply.  He  lay  staring 
at  the  ceiling  —  till  at  last  he  said  — 

"Delaine's  going.  He's  going  to-morrow.  He 
gets  on  Elizabeth's  nerves." 

"Did  he  say  anything  to  you  about  me?" 
said  Anderson. 

Philip  flushed. 

"Well,  I  daresay  he  did." 

"Make  your  mind  easy,  Gaddesden.  A  man 
with  my  story  is  not  going  to  ask  your  sister  to 
marry  him." 

Philip   looked   up.     Anderson   sat   composedly 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       267 

erect,  the  traces  of  his  nights  of  sleeplessness  and 
revolt  marked  on  every  feature,  but  as  much 
master  of  himself  and  his  life  —  so  Gaddesden 
intuitively  felt  —  as  he  had  ever  been.  A  move- 
ment of  remorse  and  affection  stirred  in  the  young 
man  mingled  with  the  strength  of  other  inherited 
things. 

"Awfully  sorry,  you  know,"  he  said  clumsily, 
but  this  time  sincerely.  "I  don't  suppose  it 
makes  any  difference  to  you  that  your  father  — 
well,  rd  better  not  talk  about  it.  But  you  see  — 
Elizabeth  might  marry  anybody.  She  might 
have  married  heaps  of  times  since  Merton  died, 
if  she  hadn't  been  such  an  icicle.  She's  got  lots 
of  money,  and  —  well,  I  don't  want  to  be  snobbish 
^ —  but  at  home  —  we  —  our  family " 

"I  understand,"  said  Anderson,  perhaps  a 
little  impatiently  —  "you  are  great  people.  I 
understood  that  all  along." 

Family  pride  cried  out  in  Philip,     "Then  why 

the    deuce "     But    he    said    aloud    in    some 

confusion,  "I  suppose  that  sounded  disgusting"  — 
then  floundering  deeper  —  "but  you  see  —  well, 
I'm  very   fond   of  Elizabeth!" 

Anderson  rose  and  walked  to  the  window  which 
commanded  a  view  of  the  railway  line. 

"  I  see  the  car  outside.  I'll  go  and  have  a  few 
words  with  Yerkes.'* 


268       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

The  boy  let  him  go  in  silence  —  conscious  on 
the  one  hand  that  he  had  himself  played  a  mean 
part  in  their  conversation,  and  on  the  other  that 
Anderson,  under  this  onset  of  sordid  misfortune, 
was  somehow  more  of  a  hero  in  his  eyes,  and  no 
doubt  in  other  people's,  than  ever. 

On  his  way  downstairs  Anderson  ran  into 
Delaine,  who  was  ascending  with  an  armful  of 
books  and  pamphlets. 

"Oh,  how  do  you  do.?  Had  only  just  heard 
you  were  here.     May  I  have  a  word  with  you  .?" 

Anderson  remounted  the  stairs  in  silence,  and 
the  two  men  paused,  seeing  no  one  in  sight,  in 
the  corridor  beyond. 

"I  have  just  read  the  report  of  the  inquest, 
and  should  like  to  offer  you  my  sincere  sympathy 
and  congratulations  on  your  very  straightforward 

behaviour '*     Anderson   made   a    movement. 

Delaine   went   on    hurriedly  — 

"I  should  like  also  to  thank  you  for  having  kept 
my  name  out  of  it." 

"There  was  no  need  to  bring  it  in,"  said  Ander- 
son coldly. 

"No  of  course  not  —  of  course  not!  I  have 
also  seen  the  news  of  your  appointment.  I  trust 
nothing  will  interfere  with  that." 

Anderson  turned  towards  the  stairs  again.     He 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       269 

was  conscious  of  a  keen  antipathy  —  the  antipathy 
of  tired  nerves  —  to  the  speaker's  mere  aspect, 
his  long  hair,  his  too  picturesque  dress,  the  antique 
on  his  little  finger,  the  effeminate  stammer  in 
his  voice. 

"Are  you  going  to-day?  What  train?"  he 
said,  in  a  careless  voice  as  he  moved  away. 

Delaine  drew  back,  made  a  curt  reply,  and  the 
two  men  parted. 

"Oh,  he'll  get  over  it;  there  will  very  likely  be 
nothing  to  get  over,"  Delaine  reflected  tartly, 
as  he  made  his  way  to  his  room.  "A  new  country 
like  this  can't  be  too  particular."  He  was  thank- 
ful, at  any  rate,  that  he  would  have  an  opportunity 
before  long  —  for  he  was  going  straight  home 
and  to  Cumberland  — of  putting  Mrs.  Gaddesden 
on  her  guard.  "  I  may  be  thought  ofl&cious;  Lady 
Merton  let  me  see  very  plainly  that  she  thinks  me 
so  —  but  I  shall   do  my  duty  nevertheless." 

And  as  he  stood  over  his  packing,  bewildering 
his  valet  with  a  number  of  precise  and  old-maidish 
directions,  his  sore  mind  ran  alternately  on  the 
fiasco  of  his  own  journey  and  on  the  incredible 
folly  of  nice  women. 

Delaine  departed;  and  for  two  days  Elizabeth 
ministered  to  Anderson.  She  herself  went 
strangely   through    it,   feeling   between   them,    as 


270       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

it  were,  the  bared  sword  of  his  ascetic  will  —  no 
less  than  her  own  terrors  and  hesitations.  But 
she  set  herself  to  lift  him  from  the  depths;  and 
as  they  walked  about  the  mountains  and  the 
forests,  in  a  glory  of  summer  sunshine,  the  sanity 
and  sweetness  of  her  nature  made  for  him  a  spirit- 
ual atmosphere  akin  in  its  healing  power  to  the 
influence  of  pine  and  glacier  upon  his  physical 
weariness. 

On  the  second  evening,  Mariette  walked  into  the 
hotel.  Anderson,  who  had  just  concluded  all 
arrangements  for  the  departure  of  the  car  with 
its  party  within  forty-eight  hours,  received  him 
with  astonishment. 

"What  brings  you  here.?'* 

Mariette's  harsh   face  smiled   at  him  gravely. 

"  The  conviction  that  if  I  didn't  come,  you  would 
be  committing  a  folly." 

"What  do  you  mean.?" 

"Giving  up  your  Commissionership,  or  some 
nonsense  of  that  sort." 

"I  have  given  it  up." 

"  H'm!     Anything  from  Ottawa  yet .?" 

It  was  impossible,  Anderson  pointed  out,  that 
there  should  be  any  letter  for  another  three  days. 
But  he  had  written  finally  and  did  not  mean  to 
be  over-persuaded. 

Mariette  at  once  carried  him  off  for  a  walk  and 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       271 

attacked  him  vigorously.  "Your  private  affairs 
have  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  your  public  work. 
Canada  wants  you — you   must  go." 

"Canada  can  easily  get  hold  of  a  Commissioner 
who  would  do  her  more  credit,"  was  the  bitter 
reply.  "A  man's  personal  circumstances  are 
part  of  his  equipment.  They  must  not  be  such 
as  to  injure  his  mission." 

Mariette  argued  in  vain. 

As  they  were  both  dining  in  the  evening  with 
Elizabeth  and  Philip,  a  telegram  was  brought  in 
for  Anderson  from  the  Prime  Minister.  It 
contained  a  peremptory  and  flattering  refusal  to 
accept  his  resignation.  "Nothing  has  occurred 
which  affects  your  public  or  private  character. 
My  confidence  quite  unchanged.  Work  is  best 
for  yourself,  and  the  public  expects  it  of  you. 
Take  time  to  consider,  and  wire  me  in  two  days." 

Anderson  thrust  it  into  his  pocket,  and  was  only 
vnth  difficulty  persuaded  to  show   it  to  Mariette. 

But  in  the  course  of  the  evening  many  letters 
arrived  —  letters  of  sympathy  from  old  friends 
in  Quebec  and  Manitoba,  from  colleagues  and 
officials,  from  navvies  and  railwaymen,  even, 
on  the  C.  P.  R.,  from  his  future  constituents  in 
Saskatchewan  —  drawn  out  by  the  newspaper 
reports  of  the  inquest  and  of  Anderson's  evidence. 
For   once   the   world    rallied    to    a   good    man    in 


272       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

distress!  and  Anderson  was  strangely  touched  and 
overwhelmed  by  it. 

He  passed  an  almost  sleepless  night,  and  in  the 
morning  as  he  met  Elizabeth  on  her  balcony  he 
said  to  her,  half  reproachfully,  pointing  to  Marietta 
below  — 

"It  was  you  sent  for  him." 

Elizabeth  smiled. 

"A  woman  knows  her  limitations!  It  is  harder 
to  refuse  two  than  one." 

For  twenty-four  hours  the  issue  remained 
uncertain.  Letters  continued  to  pour  in;  Marietta 
applied  the  plain-spoken,  half-scornful  arguments 
natural  to  a  man  holding  a  purely  spiritual  stand- 
ard of  life;  and  EHzabeth  pleaded  more  by  look 
and  manner  than  by  words. 

Anderson  held  out  as  long  as  he  could.  He  was 
assaulted  by  that  dark  midway  hour  of  manhood, 
that  distrust  of  life  and  his  own  powers,  which 
disables  so  many  of  the  world's  best  men  in  these 
heightened,  hurrying  days.  But  in  the  end  his 
two  friends  saved  him  —  as  by  fire. 

Mariette  himself  dictated  the  telegram  to  the 
Prime  Minister  in  which  Anderson  withdrew 
his  resignation;  and  then,  while  Anderson,  with 
a  fallen  countenance,  carried  it  to  the  post,  the 
French  Canadian  and  Elizabeth  looked  at  each 
other  —  in  a  common  exhaustion  and  relief. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       273 

"I  feel  a  wreck,"  said  Elizabeth.  "Monsieur, 
you  are  an  excellent  ally."  And  she  held  out  her 
hand  to  her  colleague.  Mariette  took  it,  and 
bowed  over  it  with  the  air  of  a  grand  seigneur  of 
1680. 

"The  next  step  must  be  yours,  madam  — 
if  you  really  take  an  interest  in  our  friend." 

Elizabeth  rather  nervously  inquired  what  it 
might  be. 

"Find  him  a  w4fe!  —  a  good  wife.  He  was 
not  made  to  live  alone." 

His  penetrating  eyes  in  his  ugly  well-bred  face 
searched  the  features  of  his  companion.  Eliza- 
beth bore  it  smiling,  without  flinching. 

A  fortnight  passed  —  and  Elizabeth  and  Philip 
were  on  their  way  home  through  the  heat  of  July. 
Once  more  the  railway  which  had  become  their 
kind  familiar  friend  sped  them  through  the 
prairies,  already  whitening  to  the  harvest,  through 
the  Ontarian  forests  and  the  Ottawa  valley.  The 
wheat  was  standing  thick  on  the  illimitable  earth; 
the  plains  in  their  green  or  golden  dress  seemed 
to  laugh  and  sing  under  the  hot  dome  of  sky. 
Again  the  great  Canadian  spectacle  unrolled  itself 
from  west  to  east,  and  the  heart  Elizabeth  brought 
to  it  was  no  longer  the  heart  of  a  stranger.  The 
teeming  Canadian  life  had  become  interwoven 
with  her  life;  and  when  Anderson  came  to  bid 


274       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

her  a  hurried  farewell  on  the  platform  at  Regina, 
she  carried  the  passionate  memory  of  his  face 
with  her,  as  the  embodiment  and  symbol  of  all 
that  she  had  seen  and  felt. 

Then  her  thoughts  turned  to  England,  and  the 
struggle  before  her.  She  braced  herself  against 
the  Old  World  as  against  an  enemy.  But  her 
spirit  failed  her  when  she  remembered  that  in 
Anderson  himself  she  was  like  to  find  her  chiefest 
foe. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

"What  about  the  shooters,  Wilson?  I  suppose 
they'll  be  in  directly?" 

"They're  just  finishing  the  last  beat,  ma'am. 
Shall  I  bring  in  tea?" 

Mrs.  Gaddesden  assented,  and  then  leaving 
her  seat  by  the  fire  she  moved  to  the  window  to 
see  if  she  could  discover  any  signs  in  the  wintry 
landscape  outside  of  Philip  and  his  shooting 
party.  As  she  did  so  she  heard  a  rattle  of  distant 
shots  coming  from  a  point  to  her  right  beyond 
the  girdling  trees  of  the  garden.  But  she  saw 
none  of  the  shooters  —  only  two  persons,  walking 
up  and  down  the  stone  terrace  outside,  in  the 
glow  of  the  November  sunset.  One  was  Eliza- 
beth, the  other  a  tall,  ungainly,  yet  remarkable 
figure,  was  a  Canadian  friend  of  Elizabeth's,  who 
had  only  arrived  that  forenoon  —  M.  Felix  Mari- 
ette,  of  Quebec.  According  to  Elizabeth,  he  had 
come  over  to  attend  a  Catholic  Congress  in 
London.  Mrs.  Gaddesden  understood  that  he 
was  an  Ultramontane,  and  that  she  was  not  to 
mention  to  him  the  word  "Empire."     She  knew 

275 


276       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

also  that  Elizabeth  had  made  arrangements  with 
a  neighbouring  landowner,  who  was  also  a  Catho- 
Hc,  that  he  should  be  motored  fifteen  miles  to 
Mass  on  the  following  morning,  which  was  Sun- 
day; and  her  own  easy-going  Anglican  temper, 
which  carried  her  to  the  parish  church  about 
twelve  times  a  year,  had  been  thereby  a  good 
deal  impressed. 

How  well  those  furs  became  Elizabeth!  It 
was  a  chill  frosty  evening,  and  EHzabeth's  sHght 
form  was  wrapped  in  the  sables  which  had  been 
one  of  poor  Merton's  earhest  gifts  to  her.  The 
mother's  eye  dwelt  with  an  habitual  pride  on  the 
daughter's  grace  of  movement  and  carriage. 
"She  is  always  so  distinguished,"  she  thought, 
and  then  checked  herself  by  the  remembrance 
that  she  was  applying  to  Elizabeth  an  adjective  that 
Ehzabeth  particularly  disliked.  Nevertheless, 
Mrs.  Gaddesden  knew  very  well  what  she  herself 
meant  by  it.  She  meant  something  —  some  qual- 
ity in  Ehzabeth,  which  was  always  provoking 
in  her  mother's  mind  despairing  comparisons 
between  what  she  might  make  of  her  life  and  what 
she  was  actually  making,  or  threatening  to  make 
of  it. 

Alas,  for  that  Canadian  journey  —  that  disas- 
trous Canadian  journey!  Mrs.  Gaddesden's 
thoughts,  as  she  watched  the  two  strollers  outside. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       277 

were  carried  back  to  the  moment  in  early  August 
when  Arthur  Delaine  had  reappeared  in  her 
drawing-room,  three  weeks  before  Elizabeth's 
return,  and  she  had  gathered  from  his  cautious 
and  stammering  revelations  what  kind  of  man 
it  was  who  seemed  to  have  established  this  strange 
hold  on  her  daughter.  Delaine,  she  thought, 
had  spoken  most  generously  of  Elizabeth  and  his 
own  disappointment,  and  most  kindly  of  this 
Mr.  Anderson. 

"  I  know  nothing  against  him  personally  — 
nothing!  No  doubt  a  very  estimable  young  fellow, 
with  just  the  kind  of  ability  that  will  help  him 
in  Canada.  Lady  Merton,  I  imagine,  will  have 
told  you  of  the  sad  events  in  which  we  found  him 
involved  ?" 

Mrs.  Gaddesden  had  replied  that  certainly 
Elizabeth  had  told  her  the  whole  story,  so  far  as 
it  concerned  Mr.  Anderson.  She  pointed  to  the 
letters  beside  her. 

**But  you  cannot  suppose,"  had  been  her 
further  indignant  remark,  "that  Elizabeth  would 
ever  dream  of  marrying  him!" 

"That,  my  dear  old  friend,  is  for  her  mother  to 
find  out,"  Delaine  had  replied,  not  without  a 
touch  of  venom.  "I  can  certainly  assure  you 
that  Lady  Merton  is  deeply  interested  in  this 
young  man,  and  he  in  her." 


278       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

"Elizabeth  —  exiling  herself  in  Canada  — 
burying  herself  on  the  prairies  —  when  she  might 
have  everything  here  —  the  best  of  everything  — 
at  her  feet.     It  is  inconceivable!" 

Delaine  had  agreed  that  it  was  inconceivable, 
and  they  had  mourned  together  over  the  grotesque 
possibilities  of  life.  "But  you  will  save  her,"  he 
had  said  at  last.  "You  will  save  her!  You  will 
point  out  to  her  all  she  would  be  giving  up  — 
the  absurdity,   the  really  criminal  waste  of  it!" 

On  which  he  had  gloomily  taken  his  departure 
for  an  archaeological  congress  at  Berlin,  and  an 
autumn  in  Italy;  and  a  few  weeks  later  she  had 
recovered  her  darling  Elizabeth,  paler  and  thinner 
than  before  —  and  quite,  quite  incomprehensible! 

As  for  "saving"  her,  Mrs.  Gaddesden  had  not 
been  allowed  to  attempt  it.  In  the  first  place, 
Elizabeth  had  stoutly  denied  that  there  was  any- 
thing to  save  her  from.  "  Don't  beheve  anything 
at  all,  dear  Mummy,  that  Arthur  Delaine  may 
have  said  to  you!  I  have  made  a  great  friend  — 
of  a  very  interesting  man;  and  I  am  going  to 
correspond  with  him.  He  is  coming  to  London 
in  November,  and  I  have  asked  him  to  stay  here. 
And  you  must  be  very  kind  to  him,  darling  — 
just  as  kind  as  you  can  be  —  for  he  has  had  a 
hard  time  —  he  saved  Philip's  life  —  and  he  is 
an  uncommonly  fine  fellow!" 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       279 

And  with  that  —  great  readiness  to  talk  about 
everything  except  just  what  Mrs.  Gaddesden 
most  wanted  to  know.  Elizabeth  sitting  on  her 
mother's  bed  at  night,  crooning  about  Canada  — 
her  soft  brov/n  hair  over  her  shoulders,  and  her 
eyes  sparkling  with  patriotic  enthusiasm,  was 
a  charming  figure.  But  let  Mrs.  Gaddesden 
attempt  to  probe  and  penetrate  beyond  a  certain 
point,  and  the  way  was  resolutely  barred.  Eliza- 
beth would  kiss  her  mother  tenderly  —  it  was 
as  though  her  own  reticence  hurt  her  —  but  would 
say  nothing.  Mrs.  Gaddesden  could  only  feel 
sorely  that  a  great  change  had  come  over  the 
being  she  loved  best  in  the  world,  and  that  she  was 
not  to  know  the  whys  and  wherefores  of  it. 

And  Philip  —  alack!  had  been  of  very  little 
use  to  her  in  the  matter! 

"  Don't  you  bother  your  head,  Mother !  Ander- 
son's an  awfully  good  chap  —  but  he's  not  going 
to  marry  Elizabeth.  Told  me  he  knew  he  wasn't 
the  kind.  And  of  course  he  isn't  —  must  draw 
the  line  somewhere  —  hang  it!  But  he's  an 
awfully  decent  fellow.  He's  not  going  to  push 
himself  in  where  he  isn't  w^anted.  You  let  Eliza- 
beth alone,  Mummy  —  it'll  work  off.  And  of 
course  we  must  be  civil  to  him  when  he  comes 
over  —  I  should  jolly  well  think  we  must  — 
considering  he  saved  my  life!" 


28o       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

Certainly  they  must  be  civil!  News  of  Ander- 
son's sailing  and  arrival  had  been  anxiously 
looked  for.  He  had  reached  London  three  days 
before  this  date,  had  presented  his  credentials 
at  the  Board  of  Trade  and  the  Colonial  Office, 
and  after  var.ious  preliminary  interviews  with 
ministers,  was  now  coming  down  to  Martindale 
for  a  week-end  before  the  assembling  of  the  small 
conference  of  English  and  colonial  representatives 
to  which  he  had  been  sent. 

Mrs.  Gaddesden  saw  from  the  various  notices 
of  his  arrival  in  the  English  papers  that  even  in 
England,  among  the  initiated  he  was  understood 
to  be  a  man  of  mark.  She  was  all  impatience  to 
see  him,  and  had  shown  it  outwardly  much  more 
plainly  than  Elizabeth.  How  quiet  Elizabeth 
had  been  these  last  days!  moving  about  the  house 
so  silently,  with  vaguely  smiling  eyes,  like  one 
husbanding  her  strength  before  an  ordeal. 

V/hat  was  going  to  happen  ,?  Mrs.  Gaddesden 
was  conscious  in  her  own  mind  of  a  strained  hush 
of  expectation.  But  she  had  never  ventured  to 
say  a  word  to  Elizabeth.  In  half  an  hour  —  or 
less — he  would  be  here.  A  motor  had  been 
sent  to  meet  the  express  train  at  the  country  town 
fifteen  miles  off.  Mrs.  Gaddesden  looked  round 
her  in  the  warm  dusk,  as  though  trying  to  fore- 
cast how  Martindale  and  its  inmates  would  look 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       281 

to  the  new-comer.     She  saw  a  room  of  medium 
size,  which  from  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century- 
had  been  known  as  the  Red  Drawing  Room  — a 
room  panelled  in  stamped  Cordovan  leather,  and 
filled  with  rare  and  beautiful  things;    with  ebony 
cabinets,  and  fine  lacquer;   w4th  the  rarest  of  ori- 
ental carpets,  with  carved  chairs,  and  luxurious 
sofas.     Set  here  and  there,  sparingly,  among  the 
shadows,  as  though  in  scorn  of  any  vulgar  pro- 
fusion, the  eye  caught  the  gleam  of  old   silver, 
or    rock    crystal,    or    agate;     bibelots    collected    a 
hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  by  a  Gaddesden  of 
taste,  and  still  in  their  original  places.     Overhead, 
the   uneven    stucco   ceiling  showed  a  pattern  of 
Tudor   roses;    opposite   to   Mrs.   Gaddesden   the 
wall  w^as  divided  between  a  round  mirror,  in  vv^hose 
depths  she  saw  herself  reflected  and  a  fine  Holbein 
portrait  of  a  man,  in  a  flat  velvet  hat  on  a  green 
background.     Over  the  carved  mantelpiece  with 
its  date  of  1586,  there  reigned  a  Romney  portrait 
—  one  of   the  most  famous  in  existence — of  a 
young  girl   in   black,     Elizabeth   Merton   bore   a 
curious     resemblance     to     it.     Chrysanthemums, 
white,  yellow  and  purple,  gleamed  amid  the  rich- 
ness of  the  room;  while  the  light  of  the  solitary  lamp 
beside  which  Mrs.  Gaddesden  had  been  sitting  with 
her  embroidery,  blended  with  the  orange  glow  from 
outside  now  streaming  in  through  the  unshuttered 


282       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

windows,  to  deepen  a  colour  effect  of  extraordi- 
nary beauty,  produced  partly  by  time,  partly 
by  the  conscious  effort  of  a  dozen  generations. 

And  from  the  window,  under  the  winter  sunset, 
Mrs.  Gaddesden  could  see,  at  right  angles  to  her 
,  on  either  side,  the  northern  and  southern  wings 
of  the  great  house;  the  sloping  lawns;  the  river 
winding  through  the  park;  the  ivy-grown  church 
among  the  trees;  the  distant  woods  and  planta- 
tions; the  purple  outlines  of  the  fells.  Just  as 
in  the  room  within,  so  the  scene  without  was  fused 
into  a  perfect  harmony  and  keeping  by  the  mel- 
lowing light.  There  was  in  it  not  a  jarring  note, 
a  ragged  line  —  age  and  dignity,  wealth  and 
undisputed  place:  Martindale  expressed  them 
all.  The  Gaddesdens  had  twice  refused  a  peerage; 
and  with  contempt.  In  their  belief,  to  be  Mr. 
Gaddesden  of  Martindale  was  enough;  a  duke- 
dom could  not  have  bettered  it.  And  the  whole 
country-side  in  which  they  had  been  rooted  for 
centuries  agreed  with  them.  There  had  even 
been  a  certain  disapproval  of  the  financial  suc- 
cesses of  Philip  Gaddesden's  father.  It  was  true 
that  the  Gaddesden  rents  had  gone  down.  But 
the  country,  however  commercialised  itself,  looked 
with  jealousy  on  any  intrusion  of  "commer- 
cialism" into  the  guarded  and  venerable  pre- 
cincts of  Martindale. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       283 

The  little  lady  who  was  now,  till  Philip's 
majority  and  marriage,  mistress  of  Martindale, 
was  a  small,  soft,  tremulous  person,  without  the 
intelligence  of  her  daughter,  but  by  no  means 
without  character.  Secretly  she  had  often  felt 
oppressed  by  her  surroundings.  Whenever  Philip 
married,  she  would  find  it  no  hardship  at  all  to 
retire  to  the  dower  house  at  the  edge  of  the  park. 
Meanwhile  she  did  her  best  to  uphold  the  ancient 
ways.  But  if  she  sometimes  found  Martindale 
oppressive  —  too  old,  too  large,  too  rich,  too 
perfect  —  how  was  it  going  to  strike  a  young 
Canadian,  fresh  from  the  prairies,  who  had  never 
been  in  England  before  .? 

A  sudden  sound  of  many  footsteps  in  the  hall. 
The  drawing-room  door  was  thrown  open  by  PhiHp, 
and  a  troop  of  men  entered.  A  fresh-coloured 
man  with  grizzled  hair  led  the  van. 

"Well,  Mrs.  Gaddesden,  here  w^e  all  are. 
Philip  has  given  us  a  capital  day!" 

A  group  of  men  followed  him;  the  agent  of 
the  property,  two  small  neighbouring  squires, 
a  broad-browed  burly  man  in  knickerbockers, 
who  was  apparently  a  clergyman,  to  judge  from 
his  white  tie,  the  adjutant  of  the  local  regiment, 
and  a  couple  of  good-looking  youths,  Etonian 
friends  of  Philip.     Elizabeth  and  Mariette  came 


284       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

in  from  the  garden,  and  a  young  cousin  of  the 
Gaddesdens,  a  Miss  Lucas,  slipped  into  the  room 
under  EHzabeth's  wing.  She  was  a  pretty  girl, 
dressed  in  an  elaborate  demi-toilette  of  w^hite 
chiffon,  and  the  younger  men  of  the  party  in  their 
shooting  dress  —  with  Philip  at  their  head  —  were 
presently  clustered  thick  about  her,  like  bees 
after  pollen.  It  was  clear,  indeed,  that  Phihp 
was  paying  her  considerable  attention,  and  as 
he  laughed  and  sparred  with  her,  the  transient 
colour  that  exercise  had  given  him  disappeared, 
and    a   pale   look   of  excitement   took   its   place. 

Mariette  glanced  from  one  to  another  with  a 
scarcely  disguised  curiosity.  This  was  only  his 
third  visit  to  England  and  he  felt  himself  in  a 
foreign  country.  That  was  a  pasteur  he  supposed, 
in  the  gaiters  —  grotesque!  And  why  was  the 
young  lady  in  evening  dress,  w^hile  Lady  Merton, 
now  that  she  had  thrown  off  her  furs,  appeared  in 
the  severest  of  tweed  coats  and  skirts  ?  The  rosy 
old  fellow  beside  Mrs.  Gaddesden  was,  he  under- 
stood from  Lady  Merton,  the  Lord  Lieutenant 
of  the  county. 

But  at  that  moment  his  hostess  laid  hands  upon 
him  to  present  him  to  her  neighbour.  "Mon- 
sieur Mariette  —  Lord  Waynflete." 

"Delighted  to  see  you,"  said  the  great  man 
affably,    holding   out   his   hand.     "What    a    fine 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       285 

place  Canada  is  getting!  I  am  thinking  of  sending 
my  third  son  there." 

Mariette  bowed. 

"There  will  be  room  for  him." 

"I  am  afraid  he  hasn't  brains  enough  to  do 
much  here  —  but  perhaps  in  a  new  country  — " 

*'  He  will  not  require  them  ?  Yes,  it  is  a  com- 
mon opinion,"  said  Mariette,  with  composure. 
Lord  Waynflete  stared  a  little,  and  returned  to 
his  hostess.  Mariette  betook  himself  to  Eliza- 
beth for  tea,  and  she  introduced  him  to  the  girl 
in  white,  who  looked  at  him  with  enthusiasm, 
and  at  once  threw  over  her  bevy  of  young  men, 
in  favour  of  the  spectacled  and  lean-faced  stranger. 

"You  are  a  Catholic,  Monsieur?"  she  asked 
him,  fervently.  "How  I  envy  you!  I  adore  the 
Oratory!  When  we  are  in  town  I  always  go 
there  to  Benediction  —  unless  Mamma  wants  me 
at  home  to  pour  out  tea.  Do  you  know  Cardinal 
C .?" 

She  named  a  Cardinal  Archbishop,  then  pre- 
siding over  the  diocese  of  Westminster. 

"Yes,  mademoiselle,  I  know  him  quite  well. 
I  have  just  been  staying  with  him." 

She  clasped  her  hands  eagerly. 

"How  very  interesting!  I  know  him  a  little. 
Isn't  he  nice  ?" 

"No,"  said  Mariette  resolutely.     "He  is  mag- 


286       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

nificent  —  a  saint  —  a  scholar  —  everything  — 
but  not  nice!" 

The  girl  looked  a  little  puzzled,  then  angry, 
and  after  a  few  minutes'  more  conversation  she 
returned  to  her  young  men,  conspicuously  turning 
her  back  on  Mariette. 

He  threw  a  deprecating,  half-penitent  look  at 
Elizabeth,  whose  faced  twitched  with  amusement, 
and  sat  down  in  a  corner  behind  her  that  he 
might  observe  without  talking.  His  quick  intel- 
ligence sorted  the  people  about  him  almost  at 
once  —  the  two  yeoman-squires,  who  were  not 
quite  at  home  in  Mrs.  Gaddesden's  drawing- 
room,  were  awkward  with  their  tea-cups,  and 
talked  to  each  other  in  subdued  voices,  till  Eliza- 
beth found  them  out,  summoned  them  to  her 
side,  and  made  them  happy;  the  agent  who  was 
helping  Lady  Merton  with  tea,  making  himself 
generally  useful;  Philip  and  another  gilded  youth, 
the  son,  he  understood,  of  a  neighbouring  peer, 
who  were  flirting  with  the  girl  in  white;  and  yet 
a  third  fastidious  Etonian,  who  was  clearly  bored 
by  the  ladies,  and  was  amusing  himself  viath  the 
adjutant  and  a  cigarette  in  a  distant  corner.  His 
eyes  came  back  at  last  to  the  pasteur.  An  able  face 
after  all;  cool,  shrewd,  and  not  unspiritual.  Very 
soon,  he,  the  parson  —  whose  name  was  Everett  — 
and    Elizabeth     were   drawn     into    conversation, 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       287 

and    Mariette     under    Everett's    good-humoured 
glance  found  himself  observed  as  well  as  observer. 

"You  are  trying  to  decipher  us  ?"  said  Everett, 
at  last,  with  a  smile.     "Well,  we  are  not  easy." 

"Could  you  be  a  great  nation  if  you  were.'"' 

"Perhaps  not.  England  just  now  is  a  palimp- 
sest —  the  new  writing  everywhere  on  top  of  the 
old.  Yet  it  is  the  same  parchment,  and  the  old 
is  there.     Now  you  are  writing  on  a  fresh  skin." 

"But   with   the   old   ideas!"     said    Mariette,   a 
flash     in     his    dark    eyes.     "Church — State  — 
family!  —  there    is  nothing  else    to  write    with." 

The  two  men  drew  closer  together,  and  plunged 
into  conversation.  Elizabeth  was  left  solitary 
a  moment,  behind  the  tea-things.  The  buzz  of 
the  room,  the  hearty  laugh  of  the  Lord  Lieuten- 
ant, reached  the  outer  ear.  But  every  deeper 
sense  was  strained  to  catch  a  voice  —  a  step  — 
that  must  soon  be  here.  And  presently  across 
the  room,  her  eyes  met  her  mother's,  and  their 
two  expectancies  touched. 

"Mother!  — here  is  Mr.  Anderson!" 

Philip    entered    joyously,    escorting    his    guest. 

To   Anderson's    half-dazzled    sight,    the    room, 

which   was   now  fully  lit  by  lamplight  and   fire, 

seemed   crowded.     He  found   himself  greeted   by 

a    gentle    grey-haired    lady    of   fifty-five,   with    a 


288       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

strong  likeness  to  a  face  he  knew;  and  then  his 
hand  touched  Elizabeth's.  Various  commonplaces 
passed  between  him  and  her,  as  to  his  journey, 
the  new  motor  which  had  brought  him  to  the 
house,  the  frosty  evening.  Mariette  gave  him  a 
nod  and  smile,  and  he  was  introduced  to  various 
men  who  bowed  without  any  change  of  expression, 
and  to  a  girl,  who  smiled  carelessly,  and  turned 
immediately  towards  Philip,  hanging  over  the 
back  of  her  chair. 

Elizabeth  pointed  to  a  seat  beside  her,  and 
gave  him  tea.  They  talked  of  London  a  little, 
and  his  first  impressions.  All  the  time  he  was 
trying  to  grasp  the  identity  of  the  woman  speaking 
with  the  woman  he  had  parted  from  in  Canada. 
Something  surely  had  gone  ?  This  restrained  and 
rather  cold  person  was  not  the  Elizabeth  of  the 
Rockies.  He  watched  her  when  she  turned 
from  him  to  her  other  guests;  her  light  imper- 
sonal manner  towards  the  younger  men,  with 
its  occasional  touch  of  satire;  the  friendly  relation 
between  her  and  the  parson;  the  kindly  deference 
she  showed  the  old  Lord  Lieutenant.  Evidently 
she  was  mistress  here,  much  more  than  her 
mother.  Everything  seemed  to  be  referred  to 
her,  to  circle  round  her. 

Presently  there  was  a  stir  in  the  room.  Lord 
Waynflete  asked  for  his  carriage. 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST       289 

"Don't  forget,  my  dear  lady,  that  you  open 
the  new  Town  Hall  next  Wednesday,"  he  said, 
as  he  made  his  way  to  Elizabeth. 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"But  you  make  the  speech!'* 

"Not  at  all.  They  only  want  to  hear  you. 
And  there'll  be  a  great  crowd." 

"Elizabeth  can't  speak  worth  a  cent!"  said 
Philip,  with  brotherly  candour.    "  Can  you,  Lisa  ? " 

"I  don't  believe  it,"  said  Lord  Waynflete, 
"but  it  don't  matter.  All  they  want  is  that  a 
Gaddesden  should  say  something.  Ah,  Mrs. 
Gaddesden  —  how  glorious  the  Romney  looks 
to-night!"  He  turned  to  the  fireplace,  admiring 
the  illuminated  picture,  his  hands  on  his  sides. 

"Is  it  an  ancestress?"  Mariette  addressed 
the  question  to  Elizabeth. 

"Yes.  She  had  three  husbands,  and  is  supposed 
to  have  murdered  the  fourth,"  said  Elizabeth  drily. 

"All  the  same  she's  an  extremely  handsome 
woman,"  put  in  Lord  Waynflete.  "And  as  you're 
the  image  of  her,  Lady  Merton,  you'd  better  not 
run  her  down."  Elizabeth  joined  in  the  laugh 
against  herself  and  the  speaker  turned  to  Anderson. 

"You'll  find  this  place  a  perfect  treasure-house, 
Mr.  Anderson,  and  I  advise  you  to  study  it  — 
for  the  Radicals  won't  leave  any  of  us  anything, 
before  many  years  are  out.     You're  from  Mani- 


290       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

toba  ?  Ah,  you're  not  troubled  with  any  of  these 
SociaHst  fellows  yet!  But  you'll  get  'em  — you'll 
get  'em  —  like  rats  in  the  corn.  They'll  pull 
the  old  flag  down  if  they  can.  But  you'll  help 
us  to  keep  it  flying.  The  Colonies  are  our  hope  — 
we  look  to  the  Colonies!" 

The  handsome  old  man  raised  an  oratorical 
hand,  and  looked  round  on  his  audience,  like  one 
to  whom  public  speaking  was  second  nature. 

Anderson  made  a  gesture  of  assent;  he  was 
not  really  expected  to  say  anything.  Mariette 
in  the  background  observed  the  speaker  with 
an  amused  and  critical  detachment. 

"Your  carriage  will  be  round  directly,  Lord 
Waynflete,"  said  Philip,  "but  I  don't  see  why 
you  should  go." 

"  My  dear  fellow  —  I  have  to  catch  the  night 
train.  There  is  a  most  important  debate  in  the 
House  of  Lords  to-morrow."  He  turned  to  the 
Canadian  politely.  "Of  course  you  know  there 
is  an  autumn  session  on.  With  these  Radical 
Governments  we  shall  soon  have  one  every  year." 

"What!  the  Education  Bill  again  to-morrow.?" 
said  Everett.   "  What  are  you  going  to  do  with  it .? " 

Lord  Waynflete  looked  at  the  speaker  with 
some  distaste.  He  did  not  much  approve  of 
sporting  parsons,  and  Everett's  opinions  were 
too  Liberal  to  please  him.     But  he  let  himself 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST       291 

be  drawn,  and  soon  the  whole  room  was  in  eager 
debate  on  some  of  the  old  hot  issues  between 
Church  and  Dissent.  Lord  Waynflete  ceased 
to  be  merely  fatuous  and  kindly.  His  talk 
became  shrewd,  statesmanlike  even;  he  was  the 
typical  English  aristocrat  and  Anglican  Church- 
man, discussing  topics  with  which  he  had  been 
familiar  from  his  cradle,  and  in  a  manner  and 
tone  which  every  man  in  the  room  —  save  the 
two  Canadians  —  accepted  without  question.  He 
was  the  natural  leader  of  these  men  of  the  land- 
owning or  military  class;  they  liked  to  hear  him 
harangue;  and  harangue  he  did,  till  the  striking 
of  a  clock  suddenly  checked  him. 

"I  must  be  off!  Well,  Mrs.  Gaddesden,  it's 
the  Church  —  the  Church  we  have  to  think  of!  — 
the  Church  we  have  to  fight  for!  What  would 
England  be  without  the  Church  —  let's  ask  our- 
selves that.     Good-bye  —  good-bye!" 

"Is  he  talking  of  the  Anglican  establishment  ?" 
muttered    Mariette.     "Quel   drole   de   vieillard!'' 

The  parson  heard  him,  and,  with  a  twinkle 
in  his  eyes,  turned  and  proposed  to  show  the 
French  Canadian  the  famous  library  of  the  house. 

The  party  melted  away.  Even  Ehzabeth  had 
been  summoned  for  some  last  word  with  Lord 
Waynflete  on  the  subject  of  the  opening  of  the 
Town  Hall.     Anderson  was  left  alone. 


292       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

He  looked  around  him,  at  the  room,  the  pictures, 
the  panelled  walls,  and  then  moving  to  the  window 
which  was  still  unshuttered,  he  gazed  out  into 
the  starlit  dusk,  and  the  dim,  stately  landscape. 
There  were  Hghts  in  the  church  showing  the 
stained  glass  of  the  perpendicular  windows,  and 
a  flight  of  rooks  was  circling  round  the  old  tower. 

As  he  stood  there,  somebody  came  back  into 
the  room.    It  was  the  adjutant,  looking  for  his  hat. 

"Jolly  old  place,  isn't  it?"  said  the  young 
man  civilly,  seeing  that  the  stranger  was  studying 
the  view.  "It's  to  be  hoped  that  PhiHp  will 
keep  it  up  properly." 

"He  seems  fond  of  it,"  said  Anderson. 

"Oh,  yes!  But  you've  got  to  be  a  big  man  to 
fill  the  position.  However,  there's  money  enough. 
They're  all  rich  —  and  they  marry  money." 

Anderson  murmured  something  inaudible,  and 
the  young  man  departed. 

A  little  later  Anderson  and  Elizabeth  were 
seated  together  in  the  Red  Drawing  Room.  Mrs. 
Gaddesden,  after  a  little  perfunctory  conversation 
with  the  new-comer,  had  disappeared  on  the  plea 
of  letters  to  write.  The  girl  in  white,  the  centre 
of  a  large  party  in  the  hall,  was  flirting  to  her 
heart's  content.  Philip  would  have  dearly  liked 
to  stay  and  flirt  with  her  himself;   but  his  mother, 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST       293 

terrified  by  his  pallor  and  fatigue  after  the  exertion 
of  the  shoot,  had  hurried  him  off  to  take  a  warm 
bath  and  rest  before  dinner.  So  that  Anderson 
and  Elizabeth  were  alone. 

Conversation  between  them  did  not  move  easily. 
Elizabeth  was  conscious  of  an  oppression  against 
which  it  seemed  vain  to  fight.  Up  to  the  moment 
of  his  sailing  from  Canada  his  letters  had  been 
frank  and  full,  the  letters  of  a  deeply  attached 
friend,  though  with  no  trace  in  them  of  the  lan- 
guage of  love.  What  change  was  it  that  the  touch 
of  English  ground  —  the  sight  of  Martindale  — 
had  wrought  ?  He  talked  with  some  readiness 
of  the  early  stages  of  his  mission  —  of  the  kindness 
shown  to  him  by  English  public  men,  and  the 
impressions  of  a  first  night  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. But  his  manner  was  constrained;  anything 
that  he  said  might  have  been  heard  by  all  the 
world;  and  as  their  talk  progressed,  Elizabeth 
felt  a  miserable  paralysis  descending  on  her  own 
will.  She  grew  whiter  and  v,hiter.  This  old 
house  in  which  they  sat,  with  its  splendours  and 
treasures,  this  environment  of  the  past  all  about 
them  seemed  to  engulf  and  entomb  them  both. 
She  had  looked  forward  with  a  girlish  pleasure  — 
and  yet  with  a  certain  tremor  —  to  showing 
Anderson  her  old  home,  the  things  she  loved  and 
had  inherited.     And   now  it  was  as  though  she 


294       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

were  vulgarly  conscious  of  wealth  and  ancestry 
as  dividing  her  from  him.  The  wildness  within 
her  which  found  its  scope  and  its  voice  in  Canada 
was  here  like  an  imprisoned  stream,  chafing  in 
caverns  underground.  Ah!  it  had  been  easy  to 
defy  the  Old  World  in  Canada,  its  myriad  voices 
and  claims  —  the  many-fingered  magic  with 
which  an  old  society  plays  on  those   born   into   it! 

"I  shall  be  here  perhaps  a  month,"  said  Ander- 
son, "but  then   I   shall  be  wanted   at  Ottawa." 

And  he  began  to  describe  a  new  matter  in  which 
he  had  been  lately  engaged  —  a  large  develop- 
ment scheme  applying  to  some  of  the  great  Peace 
River  region  north  of  Edmonton.  And  as  he 
told  her  of  his  August  journey  through  this  noble 
country,  with  its  superb  rivers,  its  shining  lakes 
and  forests,  and  its  scattered  settlers,  waiting  for 
a  Government  which  was  their  servant  and  not 
their  tyrant,  to  come  and  help  their  first  steps  in 
ordered  civilisation;  to  bring  steamers  to  their 
waters,  railways  to  link  their  settlements,  and 
fresh  settlers  to  let  loose  the  fertile  forces  of  their 
earth  —  she  suddenly  saw  in  him  his  old  self  — 
the  Anderson  who  had  sat  beside  her  in  the  cross- 
ing of  the  prairies,  who  had  looked  into  her  eyes 
the  day  of  Roger's  Pass.  He  had  grown  older 
and  thinner;  his  hair  was  even  lightly  touched 
with  grey.     But  the  traces  in  him  of  endurance 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST       295 

and  of  pain  were  like  the  weathering  of  a  fine 
building;  mellowing  had  come,  and  strength 
had  not  been  lost. 

Yet  still  no  word  of  feeling,  of  intimacy  even. 
Her  soul  cried  out  within  her,  but  there  was  no 
answer.  Then,  when  it  was  time  to  dress,  and 
she  led  him  through  the  hall,  to  the  inlaid  stair- 
case w4th  its  famous  balustrading  —  early  English 
ironwork  of  extraordinary  delicacy  —  and  through 
the  endless  corridors  upstairs,  old  and  dim,  but 
crowded  with  portraits  and  fine  furniture,  Ander- 
son looked  round  him  in  amazement. 

"What  a  wonderful  place!" 

"It  is  too  old!"  cried  Elizabeth,  petulantly; 
then  with  a  touch  of  repentance  —  "Yet  of  course 
we  love  it.  We  are  not  so  stifled  here  as  you 
would  be." 

He  smiled  and  did  not  reply. 

"Confess  you  have  been  stifled — ever  since 
you  came  to  England." 

He  drew  a  long  breath,  throwing  back  his 
head  with  a  gesture  which  made  Elizabeth  smile. 
He  smiled  in  return. 

"It  was  you  who  warned  me  how  small  it 
would  all  seem.  Such  little  fields  —  such  little 
rivers  —  such  tiny  journeys!  And  these  immense 
towns  treading  on  each  other's  heels.  Don't 
you  feel  crowded  up  ? " 


296       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

"You  are  home-sick  already?'* 

He  laughed  —  "No,  no!"  But  the  gleam  in 
his  eyes  admitted  it.  And  Elizabeth's  heart 
sank  —  down  and  down. 

A  few  more  guests  arrived  for  Sunday  —  a 
couple  of  politicians,  a  journalist,  a  poet,  one  or 
two  agreeable  women,  a  young  Lord  S.,  who  had 
just  succeeded  to  one  of  the  oldest  of  English 
marquisates,  and  so  on. 

Elizabeth  had  chosen  the  party  to  give  Ander- 
son pleasure,  and  as  a  guest  he  did  not  disappoint 
her  pride  in  him.  He  talked  well  and  modestly, 
and  the  feeling  towards  Canada  and  the  Canadians 
in  English  society  had  been  of  late  years  so  friendly 
that  although  there  was  often  colossal  ignorance, 
there  was  no  coolness  in  the  atmosphere  about 
him.  Lord  S.  confused  Lake  Superior  with  Lake 
Ontario,  and  was  of  opinion  that  the  Mackenzie 
River  flowed  into  the  Ottawa.  But  he  was  kind 
enough  to  say  that  he  would  far  sooner  go  to 
Canada  than  any  of  "those  beastly  places  abroad" 
—  and  as  he  was  just  a  simple  handsome  youth, 
Anderson  took  to  him,  as  he  had  taken  to  Philip 
at  Lake  Louise,  and  by  the  afternoon  of  Sunday 
was  talking  sport  and  big  game  in  a  manner  to 
hold  the  smoking-room  enthralled. 

Only  unfortunately  Philip  was  not  there  to  hear. 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST       297 

He  had  been  over-tired  by  the  shoot,  and  had 
caught  a  chill  beside.  The  doctor  was  in  the 
house,  and  Mrs.  Gaddesden  had  very  little  mind 
to  give  to  her  Sunday  party.  Elizabeth  felt  a 
thrill  of  something  like  comfort  as  she  noticed 
how  in  the  course  of  the  day  Anderson  uncon- 
sciously slipped  back  into  the  old  Canadian 
position;  sitting  with  Philip,  amusing  him  and 
"chaffing"  him;  inducing  him  to  obey  his  doctor; 
cheering  his  mother,  and  in  general  producing 
in  Martindale  itself  the  same  impression  of  mas- 
culine help  and  support  which  he  had  produced  on 
Elizabeth,  five  months  before,  in  a  Canadian  hotel. 
By  Sunday  evening  Mrs.  Gaddesden,  instead 
of  a  watchful  enemy,  had  become  his  firm  friend; 
and  in  her  timid,  confused  way  she  asked  him  to 
come  for  a  walk  with  her  in  the  November  dusk. 
Then,  to  his  astonishment,  she  poured  out  her 
heart  to  him  about  her  son,  whose  health,  together 
with  his  recklessness,  his  determination  to  live 
like  other  and  sound  men,  was  making  the  two 
women  who  loved  him  more  and  more  anxious. 
Anderson  was  very  sorry  for  the  little  lady,  and 
genuinely  alarmed  himself  with  regard  to  Philip, 
whose  physical  condition  seemed  to  him  to  have 
changed  considerably  for  the  worse  since  the 
Canadian  journey.  His  kindness,  his  real  con- 
cern, melted  Mrs.  Gaddesden's  heart. 


298       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

"1  hope  we  shall  find  you  in  town  when  we 
come  up!"  she  said,  eagerly,  as  they  turned  back 
to  the  house,  forgetting,  in  her  maternal  egotism, 
everything  but  her  boy.  "Our  man  here  wants 
a  consultation.  We  shall  go  up  next  week  for 
a  short  time  before  Christmas." 

Anderson  hesitated  a  moment. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  slowly,  but  in  a  changed  voice, 
"Yes,  I  shall  still  be  there." 

Whereupon,  with  perturbation,  Mrs.  Gaddes- 
den  at  last  remembered  there  were  other  lions 
in  the  path.  They  had  not  said  a  single  word  — 
however  conventional  —  of  Ehzabeth.  But  she 
quickly  consoled  herself  by  the  reflection  that  he 
must  have  seen  by  now,  poor  fellow,  how  hopeless 
it  was;  and  that  being  so,  what  was  there  to  be 
said  against  admitting  him  to  their  circle,  as  a 
real  friend  of  all  the  family  —  Philip's  friend, 
Elizabeth's,  and  her  own  ? 

That  night  Mrs.  Gaddesden  was  awakened 
by  her  maid  between  twelve  and  one.  Mr. 
Gaddesden  wanted  a  certain  medicine  that  he 
thought  was  in  his  mother's  room.  Mrs.  Gaddes- 
den threw  on  her  dressing-gown  and  looked  for 
it  anxiously  in  vain.  Perhaps  Ehzabeth  might 
remember  where  it  was  last  seen.  She  hurried 
to  her.     Elizabeth  had  a  sitting-room  and  bedroom 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST       299 

at  the  end  of  the  corridor,  and  Mrs.  Gaddesden 
went  into  the  sitting-room  first,  as  quietly  as 
possible,  so  as  not  to  startle  her  daughter. 

She  had  hardly  entered  and  closed  the  door 
behind  her,  guided  by  the  light  of  a  still  flickering 
fire,  when  a  sound  from  the  inner  room  arrested  her. 

Elizabeth  —  Elizabeth   in    distress  ^ 

The  mother  stood  rooted  to  the  spot,  in  a  sudden 
anguish.  Elizabeth  —  sobbing .?  Only  once  in 
her  life  had  Mrs.  Gaddesden  heard  that  sound 
before  —  the  night  that  the  news  of  Francis 
Merton's  death  reached  Martindale,  and  Eliza- 
beth had  wept,  as  her  mother  believed,  more 
for  what  her  young  husband  might  have  been 
to  her,  than  for  what  he  had  been.  Elizabeth's 
eyes  filled  readily  with  tears  answering  to  pity 
or  high  feeling;  but  this  fierce  stifled  emotion  — 
this  abandonment  of  pain! 

Mrs.  Gaddesden  stood  trembling  and  motion- 
less, the  tears  on  her  own  cheeks.  Conjecture 
hurried  through  her  mind.  She  seemed  to  be 
learning  her  daughter,  her  gay  and  tender  Eliza- 
beth, afresh.  At  last  she  turned  and  crept  out 
of  the  room,  noiselessly  shutting  the  door.  After 
lingering  a  while  in  the  passage,  she  knocked, 
with  an  uncertain  hand,  and  waited  till  Elizabeth 
came  —  Elizabeth,  hardly  visible  in  the  firelight, 
her  brown  hair  fallino-  like  a  veil  round  her  face. 


to 


CHAPTER  XIV 

A  FEW  days  later  the  Gaddesdens  were  in  town, 
settled  in  a  house  in  Portman  Square.  Philip 
was  increasingly  ill,  and  moreover  shrouded  in 
a  bitterness  of  spirit  which  wrung  his  mother's 
heart.  She  suspected  a  new  cause  for  it  in  the 
fancy  that  he  had  lately  taken  for  Alice  Lucas, 
the  girl  in  the  white  chiffon,  who  had  piped  to 
Mariette  in  vain.  Not  that  he  ever  now  wanted 
to  see  her.  He  had  passed  into  a  phase  indeed 
of  refusing  all  society  —  except  that  of  George 
Anderson.  A  floor  of  the  Portman  Square  house 
was  given  up  to  him.  Various  treatments  were 
being  tried,  and  as  soon  as  he  was  strong  enough 
his  mother  was  to  take  him  to  the  South.  Mean- 
while his  only  pleasure  seemed  to  lie  in  Anderson's 
visits,  which  however  could  not  be  frequent, 
for  the  business  of  the  Conference  was  heavy, 
and  after  the  daily  sittings  were  over,  the  inter- 
views and  correspondence  connected  with  them 
took  much  time. 

On  these  occasions,  whether  early  in  the  morning 
before  the  business  of  the  day  began,  or  in  the  hour 

300 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       301 

before  dinner  —  sometimes  even  late  at  night  — 
Anderson  after  his  chat  with  the  invahd  would 
descend  from  PhiHp's  room  to  the  drawing-room 
below,  only  allowing  himself  a  few  minutes,  and 
glancing  always  with  a  quickening  of  the  pulse 
through  the  shadows  of  the  large  room,  to  see 
whether  it  held  two  persons  or  one.  Mrs.  Gad- 
desden  was  invariably  there;  a  small,  faded  woman 
in  trailing  lace  dresses,  who  would  sit  waiting 
for  him,  her  embroidery  on  her  knee,  and  when 
he  appeared  would  hurry  across  the  floor  to  meet 
him,  dropping  silks,  scissors,  handkerchief  on 
the  way.  This  dropping  of  all  her  incidental 
possessions  —  a  performance  repeated  night  after 
night,  and  followed  always  by  her  soft  fluttering 
apologies  —  soon  came  to  be  symbolic,  in  Ander- 
son's eyes.  She  moved  on  the  impulse  of  the 
moment,  without  thinking  what  she  might  scatter 
by  the  way.  Yet  the  impulse  was  always  a  loving 
impulse  —  and  the  regrets  were  sincere. 

As  to  the  relation  to  Anderson,  Philip  was  here 
the  pivot  of  the  situation  exactly  as  he  had  been 
in  Canada.  Just  as  his  physical  weakness,  and 
the  demands  he  founded  upon  it  had  bound  the 
Canadian  to  their  chariot  wheels  in  the  Rockies, 
so  now  —  mutatis  mutandis  —  in  London.  Mrs. 
Gaddesden  before  a  week  was  over  had  become 
pitifully    dependent    upon    him,    simply    because 


302       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

Philip  was  pleased  to  desire  his  society,  and 
showed  a  flicker  of  cheerfulness  whenever  he 
appeared.  She  was  torn  indeed  between  her 
memory  of  Elizabeth's  sobbing,  and  her  hunger 
to  give  Philip  the  moon  out  of  the  sky,  should  he 
happen  to  want  it.  Sons  must  come  first, 
daughters  second;  such  has  been  the  philosophy 
of  mothers  from  the  beginning.  She  feared  — 
desperately  feared  —  that  Elizabeth  had  given 
her  heart  away.  And  as  she  agreed  with  Philip 
that  it  would  not  be  a  seemly  or  tolerable  marriage 
for  Elizabeth,  she  would,  in  the  natural  course 
of  things,  both  for  Elizabeth's  sake  and  the 
family's,  have  tried  to  keep  the  unseemly  suitor 
at  a  distance.  But  here  he  was,  planted  somehow 
in  the  very  midst  of  their  life,  and  she,  making 
feeble  efforts  day  after  day  to  induce  him  to  root 
himself  there  still  more  firmly.  Sometimes  indeed 
she  would  try  to  press  alternatives  on  PhiHp. 
But  Philip  would  not  have  them.  What  vnth 
the  physical  and  moral  force  that  seemed  to  radi- 
ate from  Anderson,  and  bring  stimulus  with  them 
to  the  weaker  life  —  and  what  with  the  lad's 
sick  alienation  for  the  moment  from  his  ordinary 
friends  and  occupations,  Anderson  reigned 
supreme,  often  clearly  to  his  own  trouble  and 
embarrassment.  Had  it  not  been  for  Philip, 
Portman  Square  would  have  seen  him  but  seldom. 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       303 

That  Elizabeth  knew  with  a  sharp  certainty,  dim 
though  it  might  be  to  her  mother.  But  as  it 
was,  the  boy's  tragic  clinging  to  his  new  friend 
governed  all  else,  simply  because  at  the  bottom 
of  each  heart,  unrecognised  and  unexpressed, 
lurked  the  same  foreboding,  the  same  fear  of 
fears. 

The  tragic  clinging  was  also,  alack,  a  tragic 
selfishness.  Philip  had  a  substantial  share  of 
that  quick  perception  which  in  Elizabeth  became 
something  exquisite  and  impersonal,  the  source 
of  all  high  emotions.  When  Delaine  had  first 
suggested  to  him  "an  attachment"  between  Ander- 
son and  his  sister,  a  hundred  impressions  of  his 
own  had  emerged  to  verify  the  statement  and 
aggravate  his  wrath;  and  when  Anderson  had 
said  "  a  man  of  my  history  is  not  going  to  ask 
your  sister  to  marry  him,"  Philip  perfectly  under- 
stood that  but  for  the  history  the  attempt  would 
have  been  made.  Anderson  was  therefore  — 
most  unreasonably  and  presumptuously  —  in 
love  with  Elizabeth;  and  as  to  Elizabeth,  the 
indications  here  also  were  not  lost  upon  Philip.  It 
was  all  very  amazing,  and  he  wished,  to  use  his 
phrase  to  his  mother,  that  it  would  "work  off." 
But  whether  or  no,  he  could  not  do  without  Ander- 
son —  if  Anderson  was  to  be  had.  He  threw 
him  and  Elizabeth  together,  recklessly;    trusting 


304       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

to  Anderson's  word,  and  unable  to  resist  his  own 
craving  for  comfort  and  distraction. 

The  days  passed  on,  days  so  charged  with 
feehng  for  EHzabeth  that  they  could  only  be  met 
at  all  by  a  kind  of  resolute  stillness  and  self- 
control.  Philip  was  very  dependent  on  the  gossip 
his  mother  and  sister  brought  him  from  the 
world  outside.  Elizabeth  therefore,  to  please 
him,  went  into  society  as  usual,  and  forgot  her 
heartaches,  for  her  brother  and  for  herself,  as 
best  she  could.  Outwardly  she  was  much  occu- 
pied in  doing  all  that  could  be  done  —  socially 
and  even  politically  —  for  Anderson  and  Mariette. 
She  had  power  and  she  used  it.  The  two  friends 
found  themselves  the  object  of  one  of  those 
sudden  cordialities  that  open  all  doors,  even  the 
most  difficult,  and  run  like  a  warm  wave  through 
London  society.  Mariette  remained  throughout 
the  ironic  spectator  —  friendly  on  his  own  terms, 
but  entirely  rejecting,  often,  the  terms  offered 
him  tacitly  or  openly,  by  his  English  acquain- 
tance. 

"Your  ways  are  not  mine — your  ideals  are 
not  mine,  God  forbid  they  should  be!'* — he  seemed 
to  be  constantly  saying.  "But  we  happen  to 
be  oxen  bound  under  the  same  yoke,  and  dragging 
the  same  plough.  No  gush,  please  —  but  at  the 
same  time  no  ill-will !     Loyal  ?  —  to  your  loyalties  ? 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST      305 

Oh  yes  —  quite  sufficiently  —  so  long  as  you  don't 
ask  us  to  let  it  interfere  with  our  loyalty  to  our 
own!  Don't  be  such  fools  as  to  expect  us  to 
take  much  interest  in  your  Imperial  orgies.  But 
we're  all  right!  Only  let  us  alone — we're 
all  right!" 

Such  seemed  to  be  the  voice  of  this  queer, 
kindly,  satiric  personality.  London  generally  falls 
into  the  arms  of  those  who  flout  her;  and  Mariette, 
with  his  militant  Catholicism,  and  his  contempt 
for  our  governing  ideals,  became  the  fashion. 
As  for  Anderson,  the  contact  with  English  Minis- 
ters and  men  of  affairs  had  but  carried  on  the 
generous  process  of  development  that  Nature 
had  designed  for  a  strong  man.  Whereas  in 
Mariette  the  vigorous,  self-confident  English 
world  —  based  on  the  Protestant  idea  —  pro- 
duced a  bitter  and  profound  irritation,  Anderson 
seemed  to  find  in  that  world  something  ripening 
and  favouring  that  brought  out  all  the  powers  — 
the  intellectual  powers  at  least  —  of  his  nature. 
He  did  his  work  admirably;  left  the  impression 
of  a  "coming  man"  on  a  great  many  leading 
persons  interested  in  the  relations  between  Eng- 
land and  Canada;  and  when  as  often  happened 
Elizabeth  and  he  found  themselves  at  the  same 
dinner-table,  she  would  watch  the  changes  in 
him  that  a  larger  experience  was  bringing  about. 


3o6       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

with  a  heart  half  proud,  half  miserable.  As  for 
his  story,  which  was  very  commonly  known,  in 
general  society,  it  only  added  to  his  attractions. 
Mothers  who  were  under  no  anxieties  lest  he  might 
want  to  marry  their  daughters,  murmured  the 
facts  of  his  unlucky  provenance  to  each  other, 
and  then  the  more  eagerly  asked  him  to  dinner. 

Meanwhile,  for  Elizabeth  life  was  one  long 
debate,  which  left  her  often  at  night  exhausted 
and  spiritless.  The  shock  of  their  first  meeting 
at  Martindale,  when  all  her  pent-up  yearning 
and  vague  expectation  had  been  met  and  crushed 
by  the  silent  force  of  the  man's  unaltered  will, 
had  passed  away.  She  understood  him  better. 
The  woman  who  is  beloved  penetrates  to  the 
fact  through  all  the  disguises  that  a  lover  may 
attempt.  Elizabeth  knew  well  that  Anderson 
had  tones  and  expressions  for  her  that  no  other 
woman  could  win  from  him;  and  looking  back  to 
their  conversation  at  the  Glacier  House,  she 
realised,  night  after  night,  in  the  silence  of  wake- 
ful hours,  the  fulness  of  his  confession,  together 
with  the  strength  of  his  recoil  from  any  preten- 
sion to  marry  her. 

Yes,  he  loved  her,  and  his  mere  anxiety  —  now, 
and  as  things  stood  —  to  avoid  any  extension  or 
even  repetition  of  their  short-lived  intimacy,  only 
betrayed  the  fact  the  more  eloquently.     Moreover, 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST      307 

he  had  reason,  good  reason,  to  think,  as  she  often 
passionately  reminded  herself,  that  he  had  touched 
her  heart,  and  that  had  the  course  been  clear, 
he  might  have  won  her. 

But  —  the  course  was  not  clear.  From  many 
signs,  she  understood  how  deeply  the  humilia- 
tion of  the  scene  at  Sicamous  had  entered  into  a 
proud  man's  blood.  Others  might  forget;  he 
remembered.  Moreover,  that  sense  of  responsi- 
bility —  partial  responsibility  at  least  —  for  his 
father's  guilt  and  degradation,  of  which  he  had 
spoken  to  her  at  Glacier,  had,  she  perceived, 
gone  deep  with  him.  It  had  strengthened  a 
stern  and  melancholy  view  of  life,  inclining  him 
to  turn  away  from  personal  joy,  to  an  exclusive 
concern   with   public   duties   and   responsibilities. 

And  this  whole  temper  had  no  doubt  been 
increased  by  his  perception  of  the  Gaddesdens' 
place  in  English  society.  He  dared  not  —  he  would 
not  —  ask  a  woman  so  reared  in  the  best  that 
England  had  to  give,  now  that  he  understood 
what  that  best  might  be,  to  renounce  it  all  in 
favour  of  what  he  had  to  offer.  He  realised 
that  there  was  a  generous  weakness  in  her  own 
heart  on  which  he  might  have  played.  But  he 
would  not  play;  his  fixed  intention  was  to  dis- 
appear as  soon  as  possible  from  her  life;  and  it 
was  his  honest  hope  that  she  would  marry  in  her 


3o8       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

own  world  and  forget  him.  In  fact  he  was  the 
prey  of  a  kind  of  moral  terror  that  here  also,  as 
in  the  case  of  his  father,  he  might  make  some 
ghastly  mistake,  pursuing  his  own  will  under  the 
guise  of  love,  as  he  had  once  pursued  it  under 
the  guise  of  retribution  —  to  Elizabeth's  hurt 
and  his  own  remorse. 

All  this  Elizabeth  understood,  more  or  less 
plainly.  Then  came  the  question  —  granted  the 
situation,  how  was  she  to  deal  with  it  ?  Just 
as  he  surmised  that  he  could  win  her  if  he  would, 
she  too  believed  that  were  she  merely  to  set  her- 
self to  prove  her  own  love  and  evoke  his,  she 
could  probably  break  down  his  resistance.  A 
woman  knows  her  own  power.  Feverishly, 
Elizabeth  was  sometimes  on  the  point  of  putting 
it  out,  of  so  provoking  and  appealing  to  the  pas- 
sion she  divined,  as  to  bring  him,  whether  he 
would  or  no,  to  her  feet. 

But  she  hesitated.  She  too  felt  the  responsi- 
bility of  his  life,  as  of  hers.  Could  she  really 
do  this  thing  —  not  only  begin  it,  but  carry  it 
through  without  repentance,  and  without  recoil  ? 

She  made  herself  look  steadily  at  this  English 
spectacle  with  its  luxurious  complexity,  its  con- 
centration within  a  small  space  of  all  the  delicacies 
of  sense  and  soul,  its  command  of  a  rich  European 
tradition,  in  which  art  and  literature  are  hving 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST      309 

streams  springing  from  fathomless  depths  of  Hfe. 
Could  she,  whose  every  fibre  responded  so  per- 
fectly to  the  stimulus  of  this  environment,  who  up 
till  now  —  but  for  moments  of  revolt  —  had  been 
so  happy  and  at  ease  in  it,  could  she  wrench  her- 
self from  it  —  put  it  behind  her  —  and  adapt 
herself  to  quite  another,  without,  so  to  speak, 
losing  herself,  and  half  her  value,  whatever  that 
might  be,  as  a  human  being  ? 

As  we  know,  she  had  already  asked  herself 
the  question  in  some  fashion,  under  the  shadow 
of  the  Rockies.  But  to  handle  it  in  London  was 
a  more  pressing  and  poignant  affair.  It  was  partly 
the  characteristic  question  of  the  modern  woman, 
jealous,  as  women  have  never  been  before  in  the 
world's  history,  on  behalf  of  her  own  individuality. 
But  Elizabeth  put  it  still  more  in  the  interests 
of  her  pure  and  passionate  feeling  for  Anderson. 
He  must  not  —  he  should  not  —  run  any  risks 
in  loving  her! 

On  a  certain  night  early  in  December,  Eliza- 
beth had  been  dining  at  one  of  the  great  houses 
of  London.  Anderson  too  had  been  there.  The 
dinner  party,  held  in  a  famous  room  panelled  with 
full-length  Vandycks,  had  been  of  the  kind  that 
only  London  can  show;  since  only  in  England 
is  society  at  once  homogeneous  enough  and  open 
enough   to   provide  it.     In   this   house,   also,   the 


310       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

best  traditions  of  an  older  regime  still  prevailed, 
and  its  gatherings  recalled  —  not  without  some 
conscious  effort  on  the  part  of  the  hostess  —  the 
days  of  Holland  House,  and  Lady  Palmerston. 
To  its  smaller  dinner  parties,  which  w^ere  the  object 
of  so  many  social  ambitions,  nobody  was  admitted 
who  could  not  bring  a  personal  contribution. 
Dukes  had  no  more  claim  than  other  people, 
but  as  most  of  the  twenty-eight  were  blood-rela- 
tions of  the  house,  and  some  Dukes  are  agreeable, 
they  took  their  turn.  Cabinet  Ministers,  Viceroys, 
Ambassadors,  mingled  with  the  men  of  letters 
and  affairs.  There  was  indeed  a  certain  old- 
fashioned  measure  in  it  all.  To  be  merely  noto- 
rious —  even  though  you  were  amusing  —  was 
not  passport  enough.  The  hostess  —  a  beautiful 
tall  woman,  with  the  brow  of  a  child,  a  quick 
intellect,  and  an  amazing  experience  of  life  — 
created  round  her  an  atmosphere  that  was  really 
the  expression  of  her  own  personality;  fastidious, 
and  yet  eager;  cold,  and  yet  steeped  in  intellectual 
curiosities  and  passions.  Under  the  mingled 
stimulus  and  restraint  of  it,  men  and  women 
brought  out  the  best  that  was  in  them.  The  talk 
was  good,  and  nothing  —  neither  the  last  violinist, 
nor  the  latest  danseuse  —  was  allowed  to  interfere 
with  it.  And  while  the  dress  and  jewels  of  the 
women  were  generally  what  a  luxurious  capital 


LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST       311 

expects  and  provides,  you  might  often  find  some 
little  girl  in  a  dyed  frock  —  with  courage,  charm 
and  breeding  —  the  centre  of  the  scene. 

Elizabeth  in  white,  and  wearing  some  fine 
jewels  which  had  been  her  mother's,  had  found 
herself  placed  on  the  left  of  her  host,  with  an 
ex-Viceroy  of  India  on  her  other  hand.  Ander- 
son, who  was  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  table, 
watched  her  animation,  and  the  homage  that  was 
eagerly  paid  her  by  the  men  around  her.  Those 
indeed  who  had  known  her  of  old  were  of  opinion 
that  whereas  she  had  always  been  an  agreeable 
companion.  Lady  Merton  had  now  for  some 
mysterious  reason  blossomed  into  a  beauty. 
Some  kindling  change  had  passed  over  the  small 
features.  Delicacy  and  reserve  were  still  there, 
but  interfused  now  with  a  shimmering  and  trans- 
forming brightness,  as  though  some  flame  within 
leapt  intermittently  to  sight. 

Elizabeth  more  than  held  her  own  with  the 
ex-Viceroy,  who  w^as  a  person  of  brilliant  parts, 
accustomed  to  be  flattered  by  women.  She  did 
not  flatter  him,  and  he  was  reduced  in  the  end 
to  making  those  eff'orts  for  himself,  which  he 
generally  expected  other  people  to  make  for  him. 
Elizabeth's  success  with  him  drew  the  attention 
of  several  other  persons  at  the  table  besides 
Anderson.     The  ex-Viceroy  was  a  bachelor,  and 


312       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

one  of  the  great  partis  of  the  day.  What  could 
be  more  fitting  than  that  Elizabeth  Merton  should 
carry  him  off,  to  the  discomfiture  of  innumerable 
intriguers  ? 

After  dinner,  Elizabeth  waited  for  Anderson 
in  the  magnificent  gallery  upstairs  where  the 
guests  of  the  evening  party  were  beginning  to 
gather,  and  the  musicians  were  arriving.  When 
he  came  she  played  her  usual  fairy  godmother's 
part;  introducing  him  to  this  person  and  that, 
creatino;  an  interest  in  him  and  in  his  work,  wher- 
ever  it  might  be  useful  to  him.  It  was  understood 
that  she  had  met  him  in  Canada,  and  that  he  had 
been  useful  to  the  poor  delicate  brother.  No 
other  idea  entered  in.  That  she  could  have  any 
interest  in  him  for  herself  would  have  seemed 
incredible  to  this  world  looking  on. 

"I  must  slip  away,"  said  Anderson,  presently, 
in  her  ear;  "I  promised  to  look  in  on  Philip  if 
possible.  And  to-morrow  I  fear  I  shall  be  too 
busy.'* 

And  he  went  on  to  tell  her  his  own  news  of  the 
day  —  that  the  Conference  would  be  over  sooner 
than  he  supposed,  and  that  he  must  get  back  to 
Ottawa  without  delay  to  report  to  the  Canadian 
Ministry.  That  afternoon  he  had  written  to 
take  his  passage  for  the  following  week. 

It  seemed  to  her  that  he  faltered  in  telling  her; 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST       313 

and,  as  for  her,  the  crowd  of  uniformed  or  jewelled 
figures  around  them  became  to  her,  as  he  spoke, 
a  mere  meaningless  confusion.  She  was  only 
conscious  of  him,  and  of  the  emotion  which  at 
last  he  could  not  hide. 

She  quietly  said  that  she  would  soon  follow 
him  to  Portman  Square,  and  he  went  away.  A 
few  minutes  afterwards,  Elizabeth  said  good- 
night to  her  hostess,  and  emerged  upon  the  gallery 
running  round  the  fine  Italianate  hall  which  occu- 
pied the  centre  of  the  house.  Hundreds  of  people 
were  hanging  over  the  balustrading  of  the  gallery, 
watching  the  guests  coming  and  going  on  the 
marble  staircase  w^hich  occupied  the  centre  of 
the  hall. 

Elizabeth's  slight  figure  slowly  descended. 

"Pretty  creature!"  said  one  old  General, 
looking  down  upon  her.  "You  remember  — 
she  was  a  Gaddesden  of  Martindale.  She  has 
been  a  widow  a  long  time  now.  Why  doesn't 
someone  carry  her  off?'* 

Meanwhile  Elizabeth,  as  she  went  down, 
dreamily,  from  step  to  step,  her  eyes  bent  appar- 
rently  upon  the  crowd  which  filled  all  the  spaces 
of  the  great  pictorial  house,  was  conscious  of  one 
of  those  transforming  impressions  which  represent 
the  sudden  uprush  and  consummation  in  the  mind 
of  some  obscure  and  long-continued  process. 


314       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

One  moment,  she  saw  the  restless  scene  below 
her,  the  diamonds,  the  uniforms,  the  blaze  of 
electric  light,  the  tapestries  on  the  walls,  the 
handsome  faces  of  men  and  women;  the  next, 
it  had  been  wiped  out;  the  prairies  unrolled 
before  her;  she  beheld  a  green,  boundless  land 
invaded  by  a  mirage  of  sunny  water;  scattered 
through  it,  the  white  farms;  above  it,  a  vast 
dome  of  sky,  with  summer  clouds  in  glistening 
ranks  climbing  the  steep  of  blue;  and  at  the 
horizon's  edge,  a  line  of  snow-peaks.  Her  soul 
leapt  within  her.  It  was  as  though  she  felt  the 
freshness  of  the  prairie  wind  upon  her  cheek, 
while  the  call  of  that  distant  land  —  Anderson's 
country  —  its  simpler  life,  its  undetermined  fates, 
beat  through  her  heart. 

And  as  she  answered  to  it,  there  was  no  sense  of 
renunciation.  She  was  denying  no  old  affection, 
deserting  no  ancient  loyalty.  Old  and  new; 
she  seemed  to  be  the  child  of  both  —  gathering 
them  both  to  her  breast. 

Yet,  practically,  what  was  going  to  happen 
to  her,  she  did  not  know.  She  did  not  say  to 
herself,  "It  is  all  clear,  and  I  am  going  to  marry 
George  Anderson!"  But  what  she  knew  at  last 
was  that  there  was  no  dull  hindrance  in  herself, 
no  cowardice  in  her  own  will;  she  was  ready, 
when  life  and  Anderson  should  call  her. 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST      315 

At  the  foot  of  the  stairs  Mariette's  gaunt  and 
spectacled  face  broke  in  upon  her  trance.  He 
had  just  arrived  as  she  was  departing. 

"You  are  off — so  early.?"  he  asked  her, 
reproachfully. 

"I  want  to  see  PhiHp  before  he  settles  for  the 
night." 

"Anderson,  too,  meant  to  look  in  upon  your 
brother." 

"Yes.f*"  said  Elizabeth  vaguely,  conscious  of 
her    own    reddening,    and    of   Mariette's    glance. 

"You  have  heard  his  news.?"  He  drew  her  a 
little  apart  into  the  shelter  of  a  stand  of  flowers. 
"We  both  go  next  week.  You  —  Lady  Merton 
—  have  been  our  good  angel  —  our  providence. 
Has  he  been  saying  that  to  you  ?  All  the  same  — 
ma  collegue  —  I  am  disappointed  in  you!" 

Elizabeth's  eye  wavered  under  his. 

"We  agreed,  did  we  not  —  at  Glacier  —  on 
what  was  to  be  done  next  to  our  friend.?  Oh! 
don't  dispute!  I  laid  it  down  —  and  you  accepted 
it.  As  for  me,  I  have  done  nothing  but  pursue 
that  object  ever  since  —  in  my  own  way.  And 
you,  Madam  ?" 

As  he  stood  over  her,  a  lean  Don  Quixotish 
figure,  his  long  arms  akimbo,  Elizabeth's  fluttering 
laugh  broke  out. 

"Inquisitor!     Goodnight!" 


3i6       LADY  MERTON,   COLONIST 

"Good  night  —  but  —  just  a  word!  Anderson 
has  done  well  here.  Your  public  men  say  agree- 
able things  of  him.  He  will  play  your  English 
game  —  your  EngHsh  Imperialist  game —  which 
I  can't  play.  But  only,  if  he  is  happy  —  if  the 
fire  in  him  is  fed.  Consider!  Is  it  not  a  patri- 
otic duty  to  feed  it .?" 

And  grasping  her  hand,  he  looked  at  her  with 
a  gentle  mockery  that  passed  immediately  into 
that  sudden  seriousness  —  that  unconscious  air 
of  command  —  of  which  the  man  of  interior  life 
holds  the  secret.  In  his  jests  even,  he  is  still, 
by  natural  gift,  the  confessor,  the  director,  since 
he  sees  everything  as  the  mystic  sees  it,  sub  specie 
{Bternitatis. 

Elizabeth's  soft  colour  came  and  went.  But 
she  made  no  reply  —  except  it  were  through  an 
imperceptible  pressure  of  the  hand  holding  her 
own. 

At  that  moment  the  ex- Viceroy,  resplendent  in 
his  ribbon  of  the  Garter,  who  was  passing  through 
the  hall,  perceived  her,  pounced  upon  her,  and 
insisted  on  seeing  her  to  her  carriage.  Mariette, 
as  he  mounted  the  staircase,  watched  the  two 
figures  disappear  —  smiling  to  himself. 

But  on  the  way  home  the  cloud  of  sisterly  grief 
descended  on  Elizabeth.  How  could  she  think 
of  herself — when    Philip   was   ill  —  suffering  — 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST      317 

threatened  ?  And  how  would  he  bear  the  news 
of  Anderson's  hastened  departure  ? 

As  soon  as  she  reached  home,  she  was  told  by 
the  sleepy  butler  that  Mrs.  Gaddesden  was  in 
the  drawing-room,  and  that  Mr.  Anderson  was 
still  upstairs  w4th  Philip. 

As  she  entered  the  drawing-room,  her  mother 
came    running    towards    her    with    a    stifled    cry: 

"Oh,  Lisa,  Lisa!" 

In  terror,  Elizabeth  caught  her  mother  in  her 
arms. 

"Mother  —  is  he  worse  ?'* 

"No!  At  least  Barnett  declares  to  me  there 
is  no  real  change.  But  he  has  made  up  his  mind, 
to-day,  that  he  will  never  get  better.  He  told  me 
so  this  evening,  just  after  you  had  gone;  and 
Barnett  could  not  satisfy  him.  He  has  sent  for 
Mr.    Robson."     Robson  was  the   family  lawyer. 

The  two  women  looked  at  one  another  in  a  pale 
despair.  They  had  reached  the  moment  when, 
in  dealing  with  a  sick  man,  the  fictions  of  love 
drop  aw^ay,  and  the  inexorable  appears. 

"And  now  he'll  break  his  heart  over  Mr.  Ander- 
son's going!"  murmured  the  mother,  in  an 
anguish.  "I  didn't  want  him  to  see  Philip 
to-night  —  but  Philip  heard  his  ring  —  and  sent 
down  for  him." 

They  sat  looking  at  each  other,  hand  in  hand — ■ 


3i8      LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

waiting  —  and  listening.  Mrs.  Gaddesden  mur- 
mured a  broken  report  of  the  few  words  of  conver- 
sation which  rose  now,  like  a  blank  wall,  between 
all  the  past,  and  this  present;  and  Elizabeth 
listened,  the  diamonds  in  her  hair  and  the  folds  of 
her  satin  dress  glistening  among  the  shadows  of  the 
half-lit  room,  the  slow  tears  on  her  cheeks. 

At  last  a  step  descended.  Anderson  entered 
the  room. 

"  He  wants  you,"  he  said,  to  Elizabeth,  as  the  two 
women  rose.     "  I  am  afraid  you  must  go  to  him.'* 

The  electric  light  immediately  above  him 
showed  his  frowning,  shaken  look. 

"He  is  so  distressed  by  your  going?"  asked 
Elizabeth,  trembling. 

Anderson  did  not  answer,  except  to  repeat 
insistently  — 

"You  must  go  to  him.  I  don't  myself  think 
he  is  any  worse  —  but  — " 

Elizabeth  hurried  away.  Anderson  sat  down 
beside  Mrs.  Gaddesden,  and  began  to  talk  to  her. 

When  his  sister  entered  his  room,  Philip  was 
sitting  up  in  an  arm-chair  near  the  fire;  looking 
so  hectic,  so  death-doomed,  so  young,  that  his 
sister  ran  to  him  in  an  agony  —  "Darling  Philip 
—  my  precious  Philip  —  why  did  you  want  me  ? 
Why  aren't  you  asleep  ?" 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST      319 

She  bent  over  him  and  kissed  his  forehead, 
and  then  taking  his  hand  she  laid  it  against  her 
cheek,  caressing  it  tenderly. 

"I'm  not  asleep  —  because  I've  had  to  think 
of  a  great  many  things,"  said  the  boy  in  a  firm 
tone.  "Sit  down,  please,  Elizabeth.  For  a  few 
days  past,  I've  been  pretty  certain  about  myself  — 
and  to-night  I  screwed  it  out  of  Barnett.  I  haven't 
said  anything  to  you  and  mother,  but  —  well, 
the  long  and  short  of  it  is,  Lisa,  I'm  not  going  to 
recover  —  that's  all  nonsense  —  my  heart's  too 
dicky  —  I'm  going  to  die." 

She  protested  with  tears,  but  he  impatiently 
asked  her  to  be  calm.     "I've  got  to  say  something 

—  something  important  —  and  don't  you  make 
it  harder,  Elizabeth!  I'm  not  going  to  get  well, 
I  tell  you  —  and  though  I'm  not  of  age  —  legally 

—  yet  I  do  represent  father  —  I  am  the  head  of 
the  family  —  and  I  have  a  right  to  think  for  you 
and  mother.     Haven't  I .?" 

The  contrast  between  the  authoritative  voice, 
the  echo  of  things  in  him,  ancestral  and  instinctive, 
and  the  poor  lad's  tremulous  fragility,  was  mov- 
ing indeed.     But  he  would  not  let  her  caress  him. 

"Well,  these  last  weeks,  I've  been  thinking  a 
great  deal,  I  can  tell  you,  and  I  wasn't  going  to 
say  anything  to  you  and  m.other  till  I'd  got  it 
straight.     But   now,   all   of  a   sudden,   Anderson 


320       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

comes  and  says  that  he's  going  back.  Look  here, 
Elizabeth  —  I've  just  been  speaking  to  Anderson. 
You  know  that  he's  in  love  with  you  —  of  course 
you  do!" 

With  a  great  effort,  Elizabeth  controlled  herself. 
She  lifted  her  face  to  her  brother's  as  she  sat  on  a  low 
chair  beside  him.     "Yes,  dear  Philip,   I  know." 

"And  did  you  know  too  that  he  had  promised 
me  not  to  ask  you  to  marry  him  ? " 

Elizabeth  started. 

"  No  —  not  exactly.    But  perhaps  —  I  guessed." 

"He  did  then!"  said  Philip,  wearily.  "Of 
course  I  told  him  what  I  thought  of  his  wanting 
to  marry  you,  in  the  Rockies;  and  he  behaved 
awfully  decently.  He'd  never  have  said  a  word, 
I  think,  without  my  leave.  Well  —  now  I've 
changed  my  mind!" 

Elizabeth  could  not  help  smiling  through  her 
tears.  With  what  merry  scorn  would  she  have 
met  this  assertion  of  the  patria  potestas  from  the 
mouth  of  a  sound  brother!     Her  poor  Philip! 

"Dear  old  boy!  —  what  have  you  been  saying 
to  Mr.  Anderson  ?" 

"Well!"— the  boy  choked  a  little  — "I've 
been  telling  him  that  —  well,  never  mind!  —  he 
knows  what  I  think  about  him.  Perhaps  if  I'd 
known  him  years  ago  —  I'd  have  been  different. 
That  don't  matter.     But  I  want  to  settle  things 


LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST      321 

up  for  you  and  him.  Because  you  know,  Eliza- 
beth, you're  pretty  gone  on  him,  too!" 

Elizabeth  hid  her  face  against  his  knee  —  with- 
out speaking.     The  boy  resumed : 

"And  so  I've  been  teUing  him  that  now  I 
thought  differently  —  I  hoped  he  would  ask  you 
to  marry  him  —  and  I  knew  that  you  cared  for 
him  —  but  that  he  mustn't  dream  of  taking  you 
to  Canada.  That  was  all  nonsense  —  couldn't 
be  thought  of!  He  must  settle  here.  You've 
lots  of  money  —  and  —  well,  when  I'm  gone  — 
you'll  have  more.  Of  course  Martindale  will  go 
away  from  us,  and  I  know  he  will  look  after  mother 
as  well  as  you." 

There  was  silence  —  till  EHzabeth  murmured  — 

"And  what  did  he  say  .?" 

The  lad  drew  himself  away  from  her  with  an 
angry  movement. 

"He  refused!" 

Elizabeth  lifted  herself,  a  gleam  of  something 
splendid  and  passionate  lighting  up  her  small  face. 

"And  what  else,  dear  Philip,  did  you  expect?" 

"I  expected  him  to  look  at  it  reasonably!'* 
cried  the  boy.  "How  can  he  ask  a  woman  like 
you  to  go  and  live  with  him  on  the  prairies  ?  It's 
ridiculous!  He  can  go  into  English  politics,  if 
he  wants  politics.  Why  shouldn't  he  live  on  your 
money.''     Everybody  does  it!" 


322       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

"  Did  you  really  understand  what  you  were 
asking  him  to  do,  Phihp  ?" 

"Of  course  I  did!  Why,  what's  Canada  com- 
pared to  England  ?  Jolly  good  thing  for  him. 
Why  he  might  be  anything  here!  And  as  if  I 
wouldn't  rather  be  a  dustman  in  England 
than  a — " 

"Philip,  my  dear  boy!  do  rest — do  go  to 
bed,"  cried  his  mother  imploringly,  coming  into 
the  room  with  her  soft  hurrying  step.  "It's 
going  on  for  one  o'clock,  Elizabeth  mustn't 
keep  you  talking  like  this!" 

She  smiled  at  him  with  uplifted  finger,  trying 
to  hide  from  him  all  traces  of  emotion. 

But  her  son  looked  at  her  steadily. 

"Mother,  is  Anderson  gone?" 

"No,"  said  Mrs.  Gaddesden,  with  hesitation. 
"  But  he  doesn't  want  you  to  talk  any  more  to-night 
—  he  begs  you  not.     Please  —  Philip!" 

"Ask  him  to  come  here!"  said  Philip,  peremp- 
torily.    "I  want  to  talk  to  him  and  Elizabeth." 

Mrs.  Gaddesden  protested  in  vain.  The  mother 
and  daughter  looked  at  each  other  with  flushed 
faces,  holding  a  kind  of  mute  dialogue.  Then 
Elizabeth  rose  from  her  seat  by  the  fire. 

"I  will  call  Mr.  Anderson,  Phihp.  But  if  we 
convince  you  that  what  you  ask  is  quite  impossible, 
will  you  promise  to  go  quietly  to  bed  and  try  to 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST      323 

sleep  ?  It  breaks  mother's  heart,  you  know,  to 
see  you  straining  yourself  like  this." 

Philip  nodded  —  a  crimson  spot  in  each  cheek, 
his  frail  hands  twining  and  untwining  as  he  tried 
to  compose  himself. 

Elizabeth  went  half-way  down  the  stairs  and 
called.  Anderson  hurried  out  of  the  drawing- 
room,  and  saw  her  bending  to  him  from  the  shad- 
ows, very  white  and  calm. 

"Will  you  come  back  to  Philip  a  moment?" 
she  said,  gently.  *'  Philip  has  told  me  what  he 
proposed  to  you." 

Anderson  could  not  find  a  word  to  say.  In  a 
blind  tumult  of  feeling  he  caught  her  hand,  and 
pressed  his  lips  to  it,  as  though  appealing  to  her 
dumbly  to  understand  him. 

She  smiled  at  him. 

"It  will  be  all  right,"  she  whispered.  "My 
poor  Phihp!"  and  she  led  him  back  to  the  sick 
room. 

"George  —  I  wanted  you  to  come  back,  to 
talk  this  thing  out,"  said  Philip,  turning  to  him 
as  he  entered,  with  the  tyranny  of  weakness. 
"  There's  no  time  to  waste.  You  know  —  every- 
body knows  —  I  may  get  worse  —  and  there'll 
be   nothing  settled.     It's   my   duty  to   settle — " 

Elizabeth  interrupted  him. 

"Phihp  darUng!— " 


324      LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

She  was  hanging  over  his  chair,  while  Ander- 
son stood  a  few  feet  away,  leaning  against  the 
mantelpiece,  his  face  turned  from  the  brother 
and  sister.  The  intimacy  —  solemnity  almost  — 
of  the  sick-room,  the  midnight  hour,  seemed 
to  strike  through  Elizabeth's  being,  deepening 
and  yet  liberating  emotion. 

"Dear  Philip!  It  is  not  for  Mr.  Anderson  to 
answer  you  —  it  is  for  me.  If  he  could  give  up 
his  country  —  for  happiness  —  even  for  love  — 
I  should  never  marry  him  —  for  —  I  should  not 
love  him  any  more." 

Anderson  turned  to  look  at  her.  She  had 
moved,  and  was  now  standing  in  front  of  Philip, 
her  head  thrown  back  a  little,  her  hands  lightly 
clasped  in  front  of  her.  Her  youth,  her  dress,  her 
diamonds,  combined  strangely  with  the  touch  of 
high  passion  in  her  shining  eyes,  her  resolute  voice. 

"You  see,  dear  PhiHp,  I  love  George  Ander- 
son  — 

Anderson  gave  a  low  cry  —  and,  moving  to 
her  side,  he  grasped  her  hand.  She  gave  it  to 
him,  smiling  —  and  went  on: 

"I  love  him  —  partly  —  because  he  is  so  true 
to  his  own  people  —  because  I  saw  him  first  — 
and  knew  him  first — among  them.  No!  dear 
Philip,  he  has  his  work  to  do  in  Canada  —  in 
that  great,  great  nation  that  is  to  be.     He  has 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST      325 

been  trained  for  it  —  no  one  else  can  do  it  but  he — 
and  neither  you  nor  I  must  tempt  him  from  it." 

The  eyes  of  the  brother  and  sister  met.  Ehza- 
beth  tried  for  a  hghter  tone. 

"  But  as  neither  of  us  couU  tempt  him  from  it  — 
it  is  no  use  talking  —  is  it .?" 

Philip  looked  from  her  to  Anderson  in  a  frown- 
ing silence.  No  one  spoke  for  a  little  while. 
Then  it  seemed  to  them  as  though  the  young 
man  recognised  that  his  effort  had  failed,  and 
his  physical  weakness  shrank  from  renewing  it. 
But  he  still  resisted  his  mother's  attempt  to  put 
an  end  to  the  scene. 

"That's  all  very  well,  Lisa,"  he  said  at  last, 
"but  what  are  you  going  to  do  ?" 

Elizabeth  withdrew  her  hand  from  Anderson's. 

"What  am  I  going  to  do  f     Wait  —  just  that!" 

But  her  lip  trembled.  And  to  hide  it  she  sank 
down  again  in  the  low  chair  in  front  of  her  brother, 
propping  her  face  in  both  hands. 

"Wait.?"  repeated  Philip,  scornfully —  " and 
what  for .?" 

"Till  you  and  mother  —  come  to  my  way  of 
thinking  —  and  "  —  she  faltered  —  "  till  Mr. 
Anderson  — " 

Her  voice  failed  her  a  moment.  Anderson 
stood  motionless,  bending  towards  her,  hanging 
upon  her  every  gesture  and  tone. 


326      LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

"Till  Mr.  Anderson — "she  resumed,  "is  — 
well! — is  brave  enough  to  —  trust  a  woman! 
and  —  oh!  good  Heavens!"  —  she  dashed  the 
tears  from  her  eyes,  half  laughing,  as  her  self- 
control  broke  down  —  "clever  enough  to  save  her 
from  proposing  to  him  in  this  abominable  way!" 

She  sprang  to  her  feet  impatiently.  Anderson 
would  have  caught  her  in  his  arms;  but  with  a 
flashing  look,  she  put  him  aside.  A  wail  broke 
from  Mrs.  Gaddesden: 

"  Lisa  —  you  won't  leave  us ! " 

"Never,  darling — unless  you  send  me!  —  or 
come  with  me!  And  now,  don't  you  think,  PhiHp 
dearest,  you  might  let  us  all  go  to  bed  .?  You  are 
really  not  worse,  you  know;  and  Mother  and  I  are 
going  to  carry  you  off  south  —  very,  very  soon." 

She  bent  to  him  and  kissed  his  brow.  Philip's 
face  gradually  changed  beneath  her  look,  from 
the  tension  and  gloom  with  which  he  had  begun 
the  scene  to  a  kind  of  boyish  relief —  a  touch  of 
pleasure  —  of  mischief  even.  His  high,  majesti- 
cal  pretensions  vanished  away;  a  light  and  volatile 
mind  thought  no  more  of  them;  and  he  turned 
eagerly  to  another  idea. 

"Elizabeth,  do  you  know  that  you  have  pro- 
posed to  Anderson  ?" 

"  If  I  have,  it  was  your  fault." 

"He  hasn't  said  Yes?" 


LADY   MERTON,   COLONIST       327 

Elizabeth  was  silent.     Anderson  came  forward 

—  but  Philip  stopped  him  with  a  gesture. 

"He  can't  say  Yes  —  till  I  give  him  back  his 
promise,"  said  the  boy,  triumphantly.  "Well, 
George,  I  do  give  it  you  back  —  on  one  condition 

—  that  you  put  off  going  for  a  week,  and  that  you 
come  back  as  soon  as  you  can.  By  Jove,  I  think 
you  owe  me  that!" 

Anderson's  difficult  smile  answered  him. 

"And  now  you've  got  rid  of  your  beastly  Con- 
ference, you  can  come  in,  and  talk  business  with 
me  to-morrow  —  next  day  —  every  day!"  Philip 
resumed,  "can't  he,  Elizabeth  .?  If  you're  going 
to  be  my  brother,  I'll  jolly  well  get  you  to  tackle 
the  lawyers  instead  of  me  —  boring  old  idiots! 
I  say  —  I'm  going  to  take  it  easy  now!" 

He  settled  himself  in  his  chair  with  a  long  breath, 
and  his  eyelids  fell.  He  was  speaking,  as  they 
all  knew,  of  the  making  of  his  will.  Mrs.  Gad- 
desden  stooped  piteously  and  kissed  him.  Eliza- 
beth's face  quivered.  She  put  her  arm  round  her 
mother  and  led  her  away.  Anderson  went  to 
summon  Philip's  servant. 

A  little  later  Anderson  again  descended  the  dark 
staircase,  leaving  Philip  in  high  spirits  and  appar- 
ently much  better. 

In  the  doorway  of  the  drawing-room,  stood  a 
white   form.     Then   the   man's   passion,   so   long 


328       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

dyked  and  barriered,  had  its  way.  He  sprang 
towards  her.  She  retreated,  catching  her  breath; 
and  in  the  shadows  of  the  empty  room  she  sank 
into  his  arms.  In  the  crucible  of  that  embrace 
all  things  melted  and  changed.  His  hesitations 
and  doubts,  all  that  hampered  his  free  will  and 
purpose,  whether  it  were  the  sorrows  and  humili- 
ations of  the  past  —  or  the  compunctions  and 
demurs  of  the  present  —  dropped  away  from  him, 
as  unworthy  not  of  himself,  but  of  Elizabeth. 
She  had  made  him  master  of  herself,  and  her 
fate;  and  he  boldly  and  loyally  took  up  the  part. 
He  had  refused  to  become  the  mere  appanage  of 
her  life,  because  he  was  already  pledged  to  that 
great  idea  he  called  his  country.  She  loved  him 
the  more  for  it;  and  now  he  had  only  to  abound 
in  the  same  sense,  in  order  to  hold  and  keep  the 
nature  which  had  answered  so  finely  to  his  own. 
He  had  so  borne  himself  as  to  wipe  out  all  the 
social  and  external  inequalities  between  them. 
What  she  had  given  him,  she  had  had  to  sue  him 
to  take.  But  now  that  he  had  taken  it,  she  knew 
herself  a  weak  woman  on  his  breast,  and  she 
realised  with  a  happy  tremor  that  he  would 
make  her  no  more  apologies  for  his  love,  or  for 
his  story.  Rather,  he  stood  upon  that  dignity 
she  herself  had  given  him  —  her  lover,  and  the 
captain  of  her  life! 


EPILOGUE 

About  nine  months  later  than  the  events  told  in 
the  last  chapter,  the  August  sun,  as  it  descended 
upon  a  lake  in  that  middle  region  of  the  northern 
Rockies  which  is  known  as  yet  only  to  the  Indian 
trapper,  and — on  certain  tracks — to  a  handful 
of  white  explorers,  shone  on  a  boat  containing 
two  persons  —  Anderson  and  Elizabeth.  It  was 
but  twenty-four  hours  since  they  had  reached  the 
lake,  in  the  course  of  a  long  camping  expedition 
involving  the  company  of  two  guides,  a  couple 
of  half-breed  voyageurs,  and  a  string  of  sixteen 
horses.  No  white  foot  had  ever  before  trodden 
the  slender  beaches  of  the  lake;  its  beauty  of 
forest  and  water,  of  peak  and  crag,  of  sun  and 
shadow,  the  terror  of  its  storms,  the  loveliness  of 
its  summer  —  only  some  stray  Indian  hunter, 
once  or  twice  in  a  century  perhaps,  throughout 
all  the  aeons  of  human  history,  had  ever  beheld 
them. 

But  now,  here  were  Anderson  and  Elizabeth!  — 
first  invaders  of  an  inviolate  nature,  pioneers  of 
a  long  future  line  of  travellers  and  worshippers. 

329 


330       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

They  had  spent  the  day  of  summer  sunshine 
in  canoeing  on  the  broad  waters,  exploring  the 
green  bays,  and  venturing  a  long  way  up  a  beautiful 
winding  arm  which  seemed  to  lose  itself  in  the 
bosom  of  superb  forest-skirted  mountains,  whence 
glaciers  descended,  and  cataracts  leapt  sheer  into 
the  glistening  water.  Now  they  were  floating 
slowly  towards  the  little  promontory  where  their 
two  guides  had  raised  a  couple  of  white  tents,  and 
the  smoke  of  a  fire  was  rising  into  the  evening  air. 

Sunset  was  on  the  jagged  and  snow-clad  heights 
that  shut  in  the  lake  to  the  eastward.  The  rose 
of  the  sky  had  been  caught  by  the  water  and 
interwoven  with  its  own  lustrous  browns  and  cool 
blues;  while  fathom-deep  beneath  the  shining 
web  of  colour  gleamed  the  reflected  snows  and 
the  forest  slopes  sliding  downwards  to  infinity. 
A  few  bird-notes  were  in  the  air  —  the  scream  of 
an  eagle,  the  note  of  a  whip-poor-will,  and  far 
away  across  the  lake  a  dense  flight  of  wild  duck 
rose  above  a  reedy  river-mouth,  black  against  a 
pale  band  of  sky. 

They  were  close  now  to  the  shore,  and  to  a  spot 
where  lightning  and  storm  had  ravaged  the  pines 
and  left  a  few  open  spaces  for  the  sun  to  work. 
Elizabeth,  in  delight,  pointed  to  the  beds  of  wild 
strawberries  crimsoning  the  slopes,  intermingled 
with   stretches  of  bilberry,   and   streaks   of  blue 


EPILOGUE  331 

and  purple  asters.  But  a  wilder  life  was  there. 
Far  away  the  antlers  of  a  swimming  moose  could 
be  seen  above  the  quiet  lake.  Anderson,  sweeping 
the  side  with  his  field  glass,  pointed  to  the  ripped 
tree-trunks,  which  showed  where  the  brown 
bear  or  the  grizzly  had  been,  and  to  the  tracks  of 
lynx  or  fox  on  the  firm  yellow  sand.  And  as  they 
rounded  the  point  of  a  little  cove  they  came  upon 
a  group  of  deer  that  had  come  down  to  drink. 

The  gentle  creatures  were  not  alarmed  at  their 
approach;  they  raised  their  heads  in  the  red  light, 
seeing  man  perhaps  for  the  first  time,  but  they 
did  not  fly.  Anderson  stayed  the  boat  —  and 
he  and  Elizabeth  watched  them  with  enchant- 
ment —  their  slender  bodies  and  proud  necks, 
the  bright  sand  at  their  feet,  the  brown  water  in 
front,  the  forest  behind. 

Elizabeth  drew  a  long  breath  of  joy  —  looking 
back  again  at  the  dying  glory  of  the  lake,  and 
the  great  thunder-clouds  piled  above  the  forest. 

"Where  are  we  exactly.?"  she  said.  "Give 
me  our  bearings." 

"We  are  about  seventy  miles  north  of  the  main 
line  of  the  C.  P.  R.,  and  about  forty  or  fifty  miles 
from  the  projected  line  of  the  Grand  Trunk 
Pacific,"  said  Anderson.  "Make  haste,  dearest, 
and  name  your  lake!  —  for  where  we  come, 
others  will   follow." 


332       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

So  Elizabeth  named  it  —  Lake  George  —  after 
her  husband;  seeing  that  it  was  his  topographical 
divination,  his  tracking  of  the  lake  through  the 
ingenious  unravelling  of  a  score  of  Indian  clues 
which  had  led  them  at  last  to  that  Pisgah  height 
whence  the  silver  splendour  of  it  had  first  been 
seen.  But  the  name  was  so  hotly  repudiated  by 
Anderson  on  the  ground  of  there  being  already 
a  famous  and  an  historical  Lake  George  on  the 
American  continent,  that  the  probability  is,  when 
that  noble  sheet  of  water  comes  to  be  generally 
visited  of  mankind,  it  will  be  known  rather  as 
Lake  Elizabeth;  and  so  those  early  ambitions  of 
Elizabeth  which  she  had  expressed  to  Philip  in 
the  first  days  of  her  Canadian  journeying,  will 
be  fulfilled. 

Alas!  —  poor  Philip!  Elizabeth's  black  serge 
dress,  and  the  black  ribbon  on  her  white  sun-hat 
were  the  outward  tokens  of  a  grief,  cherished 
deep  in  her  protesting,  pitiful  heart.  Her  brother 
had  lived  for  some  four  months  after  her  engage- 
ment to  Anderson;  always,  in  spite  of  encouraging 
doctors,  under  the  same  sharp  premonition  of 
death  which  had  dictated  his  sudden  change  of 
attitude  towards  his  Canadian  friend.  In  the 
January  of  the  new  year,  Anderson  had  joined 
them  at  Bordighera,  and  there,  after  many 
alternating  hopes  and  fears,  a  sudden  attack  of 


EPILOGUE  3SS 

pneumonia  had  slit  the  thin-spun  life.  A  few 
weeks  later,  at  Mrs.  Gaddesden's  urgent  desire, 
and  while  she  was  in  the  care  of  a  younger  sister 
to  whom  she  was  tenderly  attached,  there  had  been 
a  quiet  wedding  at  Genoa,  and  a  very  pale  and 
sad  Elizabeth  had  been  carried  by  her  Anderson  to 
some  of  the  beloved  Italian  towns,  where  for  so 
long  she  had  reaped  a  yearly  harvest  of  delight. 
In  Rome,  Florence,  and  Venice  she  must  needs 
rouse  herself,  if  only  to  show  the  keen  novice 
eyes  beside  her  what  to  look  at,  and  to  grapple 
with  the  unexpected  remarks  which  the  spectacle 
evoked  from  Anderson.  He  looked  in  respectful 
silence  at  Bellini  and  Tintoret;  but  the  industrial 
growth  of  the  north,  the  strikes  of  hraccianti  on 
the  central  plains,  and  the  poverty  of  Sicily  and 
the  south  —  in  these  problems  he  was  soon  deeply 
plunged,  teaching  himself  ItaHan  in  order  to 
understand  them. 

Then  they  had  returned  to  Mrs.  Gaddesden, 
and  to  the  surrender  of  Martindale  to  its  new 
master.  For  the  estate  went  to  a  cousin,  and 
when  the  beauty  and  the  burden  of  it  were  finally 
gone,  Philip's  gentle  ineffectual  mother  departed 
with  relief  to  the  moss-grown  dower-house  beside 
Bassenthwaite  lake,  there  to  sorrow  for  her  only 
son,  and  to  find  in  the  expansion  of  Elizabeth's 
life,  in  Elizabeth's  letters,  and  the  prospects  of 


334       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

Elizabeth's  visits,  the  chief  means  left  of  courage 
and  resignation.  Philip's  love  for  Anderson,  his 
actual  death  in  those  strong  arms,  had  strengthened 
immeasurably  the  latter's  claim  upon  her;  and  in 
March  she  parted  with  him  and  Elizabeth,  promis- 
ing them  boldly  that  she  w^ould  come  to  them  in 
the  fall,  and  spend  a  Canadian  winter  with  them. 
Then  Anderson  and  Elizabeth  journeyed  West 
in  hot  haste  to  face  a  general  election,  Anderson 
was  returned,  and  during  three  or  four  months 
at  Ottawa,  Elizabeth  was  introduced  to  Canadian 
poHtics,  and  to  the  swing  and  beat  of  those  young 
interests  and  developing  national  hopes  which, 
even  after  London,  and  for  the  Londoner,  lend 
romance  and  significance  to  the  simpler  life  of 
Canada's  nascent  capital.  But  through  it  all 
both  she  and  Anderson  pined  for  the  West,  and 
when  Parliament  rose  in  early  July,  they  fled  first 
to  their  rising  farm-buildings  on  one  of  the 
tributaries  of  the  Saskatchewan,  and  then,  till 
the  homestead  was  ready,  and  the  fall  ploughing 
in  sight,  they  had  gone  to  the  Rockies,  in  order 
that  they  might  gratify  a  passionate  wish  of 
Elizabeth's  —  to  get  for  once  beyond  beaten 
tracks,  and  surprise  the  unknown.  She  pleaded 
for  it  as  their  real  honeymoon.  It  might  never 
be  possible  again;  for  the  toils  of  life  would  soon 
have  snared  them. 


EPILOGUE  335 

And  so,  after  a  month's  wandering  beyond  all 
reach  of  civilisation,  they  were  here  in  the  wild 
heart  of  Manitou's  wild  land,  and  the  red  and 
white  of  Elizabeth's  cheek,  the  fire  in  her  eyes 
showed  how  the  god's  spell  had  worked.     .     .     . 

The  evening  came.  Their  frugal  meal,  prepared 
by  one  of  the  Indian  half-breeds,  and  eaten  in  a 
merry  community  among  beds  of  orchids  and  vetch, 
was  soon  done;  and  the  husband  and  wife  pushed 
off  again  in  the  boat  —  for  the  densely  wooded 
shores  of  the  lake  were  impassable  on  foot  —  to 
watch  the  moon  rise  on  this  mysterious  land. 

And  as  they  floated  there,  often  hand  in  hand, 
talking  a  little,  but  dreaming  more  —  Anderson's 
secret  thoughts  reviewed  the  past  year,  and  the 
incredible  fortune  which  had  given  him  Elizabeth. 

Deep  in  his  nature  was  still  the  old  pessimism, 
the  old  sadness.  Could  he  make  her  happy .?  In 
the  close  contact  of  marriage  he  realised  all  that 
had  gone  to  the  making  of  her  subtle  and  delicate 
being  —  the  influences  of  a  culture  and  tradition 
of  which  he  was  mostly  ignorant,  though  her  love 
was  opening  many  gates  to  him.  He  felt  himself  in 
many  respects  her  inferior  —  and  there  were  dark 
moments  when  it  seemed  to  him  inevitable  that 
she  must  tire  of  him.  But  whenever  they  over- 
shadowed him,  the  natural  reaction  of  a  vigorous 


336       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

manhood  was  not  far  off.  Patriotism  and  passion 
—  a  profound  and  simple  pride  —  stood  up  and 
wrestled  with  his  doubt.  She  was  not  less,  but 
more,  than  he  had  imagined  her.  What  was  in 
truth  his  safeguard  and  hers,  was  the  fact  that, 
at  the  very  root  of  her,  Elizabeth  was  a  poet!  She 
had  seen  Canada  and  Anderson  from  the  beginning 
in  the  light  of  imagination;  and  that  light  was 
not  going  to  fail  her  now.  For  it  sprang  from 
the  truth  and  glow  of  her  own  nature;  by  the  help 
of  it  she  made  her  world;  and  Canada  and  Ander- 
son moved  under  it,  nobly  seen  and  nobly  felt. 

This  he  half  shrinkingly  understood,  and  he 
repaid  her  with  adoration,  and  a  wisely  yielding 
mind.  For  her  sake  he  was  ready  to  do  a  hundred 
things  he  had  never  yet  thought  of,  reading, 
inquiring,  observing,  in  wider  circles  and  over 
an  ampler  range.  For  as  the  New  World,  through 
Anderson,  worked  on  Elizabeth  —  so  Europe, 
through  Elizabeth,  worked  on  Anderson.  And 
thus,  from  life  to  life,  goes  on  the  great  inter- 
penetrating, intermingling  flux  of  things! 

It  seemed  as  though  the  golden  light  could  not 
die  from  the  lake,  though  midsummer  was  long 
past.  And  presently  up  into  its  midst  floated  the 
moon,  and  as  they  watched  the  changing  of  the 
light  upon  the  northern  snow-peaks,  they  talked 


EPILOGUE  ^         337 

of  the  vast  undiscovered  regions  beyond,  of  the 
valleys  and  lakes  that  no  survey  has  ever  mapped, 
and  the  rivers  that  from  the  beginning  of  time 
have  spread  their  pageant  of  beauty  for  the 
heavens  alone;  then,  of  that  sudden  stir  and 
uproar  of  human  life  —  prospectors,  navvies, 
lumbermen  —  that  is  now  beginning  to  be  heard 
along  that  narrow  strip  where  the  new  line  of  the 
Grand  Trunk  Pacific  is  soon  to  pierce  the  wilder- 
ness —  yet  another  link  in  the  girdling  of  the 
world.  And  further  yet,  their  fancy  followed, 
ever  northward  —  solitude  beyond  solitude,  desert 
beyond  desert  —  till,  in  the  Yukon,  it  lit  upon 
gold-seeking  man,  dominating,  at  last,  a  terrible 
and  hostile  earth,  which  had  starved  and  tortured 
and  slain  him  in  his  thousands,  before  he  could 
tame   her  to  his  will. 

And  last  —  by  happy  reaction  —  it  was  the 
prairies  again  —  their  fruitful  infinity  —  and  the 
emigrant  rush  from  East  and  South. 

"When  we  are  old" — said  Elizabeth  softly, 
slipping  her  hand  into  Anderson's — "will  all 
this  courage  die  out  of  us  ^  Now  —  nothing  of 
all  this  vastness,  this  mystery  frightens  me.  I 
feel  a  kind  of  insolent,  superhuman  strength!  — 
as  if  I  —  even  I  —  could  guide  a  plough,  reap  corn, 
shoot  rapids,  'catch  a  wild  goat  by  the  hair  —  and 
hurl  my  lances  at  the  sun!'" 


338       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

"With  this  hand?"  said  Anderson,  looking 
at  it  with  a  face  of  amusement.  But  Elizabeth 
took  no  heed  —  except  to  slip  the  other  hand  after 
it  —  both  into  the  same  shelter. 

She  pursued  her  thought,  murmuring  the 
words,  the  white  lids  falling  over  her  eyes: 

"  But  when  one  is  feeble  and  dying,  will  it  all 
grow  awful  to  me .?  Suddenly  —  shall  I  long 
to  creep  into  some  old,  old  corner  of  England  or 
Jtaly  —  and  feel  round  me  close  walls,  and  dim 
small  rooms,  and  dear,  stuffy,  familiar  streets 
that  thousands  and  thousands  of  feet  have  worn 
before  mine  V 

Anderson  smiled  at  her.  He  had  guided  their 
boat  into  a  green  cove  where  there  was  a  little 
strip  of  open  ground  between  the  water  and  the 
forest.  They  made  fast  the  boat,  and  Anderson 
found  a  mossy  seat  under  a  tall  pine  from  which 
the  lightning  of  a  recent  storm  had  stripped  a' 
great  limb,  leaving  a  crimson  gash  in  the  trunk. 
And  there  Elizabeth  nestled  to  him,  and  he  with 
his  arm  about  her,  and  the  intoxication  of  her 
slender  beauty  mastering  his  senses,  tried  to  answer 
her  as  a  plain  man  may.  The  commonplaces  of 
passion  —  its  foolish  promises  —  its  blind  con- 
fidence —  its  trembling  joy  —  there  is  no  other 
path  for  love  to  travel  by,  and  Elizabeth  and 
Anderson  trod  it  like  their  fellows. 


EPILOGUE  339 

Six  months  later  on  a  clear  winter  evening 
Elizabeth  was  standing  in  the  sitting-room  of 
a  Saskatchewan  farmhouse.  She  looked  out 
upon  a  dazzling  world  of  snow,  lying  thinly  under 
a  pale  greenish  sky  in  which  the  sunset  clouds 
were  just  beginning  to  gather.  The  land  before 
her  sloped  to  a  broad  frozen  river  up  which  a 
wagon  and  a  team  of  horses  was  plodding  its 
way  —  the  steam  rising  in  clouds  round  the 
bodies  of  the  horses  and  men.  On  a  track 
leading  to  the  river  a  sledge  was  running  — 
the  bells  jingling  in  the  still,  light  air.  To  her 
left  were  the  great  barns  of  the  homestead,  and 
beyond,  the  long  low  cowshed,  with  a  group  of 
Shorthorns  and  Herefords  standing  beside  the 
open  door.  Her  eyes  delighted  in  the  whiteness 
of  the  snow,  or  the  touches  of  orange  and  scarlet 
in  the  clumps  of  bush,  in  a  note  of  crimson  here 
and  there,  among  the  withered  reeds  pushing 
through  the  snow,  or  in  the  thin  background  of 
a  few  taller  trees  —  the  "shelter-belt"  of  the 
farm  —  rising  brown  and  sharp  against  the  blue. 

Within  the  farmhouse  sitting-room  flamed  a 
great  w^ood  fire,  which  shed  its  glow  on  the  white 
walls,  on  the  prints  and  photographs  and  books 
which  were  still  Elizabeth's  companions  in  the 
heart  of  the  prairies,  as  they  had  been  at  Martin- 
dale.     The   room   was   simplicity   itself,   yet   full 


340       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

of  charm,  with  its  blue  druggetting,  its  pale  green 
chairs  and  hangings.  At  its  further  end,  a  curtain 
half  drawn  aside  showed  another  room,  a  dining- 
room,  also  firelit  —  with  a  long  table  spread  for 
tea,  a  bare  floor  of  polished  woodblocks,  and  a 
few  prints  on  the  walls. 

The  wagon  she  had  seen  on  the  river 
approached  the  homestead.  The  man  who  was 
driving  it  —  a  strong-limbed,  fair-haired  fellow  — 
lifted  his  cap  when  he  saw  Elizabeth  at  the 
window.  She  nodded  and  smiled  at  him.  He 
was  Edward  Tyson,  one  of  the  two  engine-drivers 
who  had  taken  her  and  Philip  through  the  Kicking 
Horse  Pass.  His  friend  also  could  be  seen  stand- 
ing among  the  cattle  gathered  in  the  farmyard. 
They  had  become  Anderson's  foremen  and 
partners  on  his  farm  of  twelve  hundred  acres,  of 
which  only  some  three  hundred  acres  had  been 
as  yet  brought  under  plough.  The  rest  was  still 
virgin  prairie,  pasturing  a  large  mixed  herd  of 
cattle  and  horses.  The  two  North-Countrymen 
had  been  managing  it  all  in  Anderson's  Parliamen- 
tary absences,  and  were  quite  as  determined  as  he 
to  make  it  a  centre  of  science  and  progress  for 
a  still  remote  and  sparely  peopled  district.  One 
of  the  kinsmen  was  married,  and  lived  in  a  small 
frame  house,  a  stone's  throw  from  the  main 
buildings  of  the  farm.     The  other  was  the  head 


EPILOGUE  341 

of  the  "bothy"  or  boarding-house  for  hired  men, 
a  long  low  building,  with  cheerful  white-curtained 
windows,  which  could  be  seen  just  beyond  the 
cow-house. 

As  she  looked  over  the  broad  whiteness  of  the 
farmlands,  above  which  the  sunset  clouds  were 
now  tossing  in  climbing  lines  of  crimson  and  gold, 
rising  steeply  to  a  zenith  of  splendour,  and  opening 
here    and    there,    amid    their   tumult,   to   show   a 
further    heaven    of   untroubled    blue  —  Elizabeth 
thought  with  lamentation  that  their  days  on  the 
farm    were    almost    done.     The    following    week 
could  see  them  at  Ottawa  for  the  opening  of  the 
session.     Anderson    was    full    of    Parliamentary 
projects;  important   work   for   the   Province  had 
been  entrusted  to  him;  and  in  the  general  labour 
policy   of  the   Dominion   he   would    find   himself 
driven   to   take   a    prominent   part.     But   all   the 
while  his  heart  and  Elizabeth's  were  in  the  land 
and  its  problems;  for  them  the  true,  the  entrancing 
Canada   was  in   the  wilds.     And   for  Anderson, 
who  through  so  many  years,  as  an  explorer  and 
engineer,  had  met  Nature  face  to  face,  his  will 
against  hers,  in  a  direct  and  simple  conflict,  the 
tedious  and  tortuous  methods  of  modern  politics 
were  not  easy  to  learn.     He  must  indeed  learn 
them  —  he   was    learning   them;   and    the   future 
had  probably  great  things  in  store  for  him,  as  a 


342       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

politician.  But  he  came  back  to  the  Saskatchewan 
farm  with  joy,  and  he  would  leave  it  reluctantly. 

"If  only  I  wasn't  so  rich!"  thought  Elizabeth, 
with  compunction.  For  she  often  looked  with 
envy  on  her  neighbours  who  had  gone  through 
the  real  hardships  of  the  country;  who  had  bought 
their  Canadian  citizenship  with  the  toil  and  frugal- 
ity of  years.  It  seemed  to  her  sometimes  that 
she  was  step-child  rather  than  daughter  of  the 
dear  new  land,  in  spite  of  her  yearning  towards  it. 

And  yet  money  had  brought  its  own  romance. 
It  had  enabled  Anderson  to  embark  on  this  ample 
farm  of  nearly  two  square  miles,  to  staff  it  with  the 
best  labour  to  be  got,  on  a  basis  of  copartnership, 
to  bring  herds  of  magnificent  cattle  into  these 
park-like  prairies,  to  set  up  horse-breeding,  and 
to  establish  on  the  borders  of  the  farm  a  large 
creamery  which  was  already  proving  an  attraction 
for  settlers.  It  was  going  to  put  into  Elizabeth's 
hands  the  power  of  helping  the  young  University 
of  Strathcona  just  across  the  Albertan  border, 
and  perhaps  of  founding  in  their  own  provincial 
capital  of  Regina  a  training  college  for  farm- 
students  —  girls  and  boys  —  which  might  repro- 
duce for  the  West  the  college  of  St.  Anne's,  that 
wonderful  home  of  all  the  useful  arts,  which  an 
ever-generous  wealth  has  given  to  the  Province 
of  Quebec.     Already  she  had  in  her  mind  a  cottage 


EPILOGUE  343 

hospital  —  sorely  wanted  —  for  the  little  town  of 
Donaldminster,  wherein  the  weaklings  of  this 
great  emigrant  army  now  pouring  into  the  country 
might  find  help. 

Her  heart,  indeed,  was  full  of  schemes  for  help. 
Here  she  was,  a  woman  of  high  education,  and 
much  wealth,  in  the  midst  of  this  nascent  com- 
munity. Her  thoughts  pondered  the  life  of  these 
scattered  farms  —  of  the  hard-working  women 
in  them  —  the  lively  rosy-cheeked  children.  It 
was  her  ambition  so  to  live  among  them  that 
they  might  love  her  —  trust  her  —  use  her. 

Meanwhile  their  own  home  was  a  "temple  of 
industrious  peace."  Elizabeth  was  a  prairie 
housewife  like  her  neighbours.  She  had  indeed 
brought  out  with  her  from  Cumberland  one  of 
the  Martindale  gardeners  and  his  young  wife  and 
sister;  and  the  two  North-Countrywomen  shared 
with  the  farm  mistress  the  work  of  the  house, 
till  such  time  as  Anderson  should  help  the  husband 
to  a  quarter-section  of  his  own,  and  take  someone 
else  to  train  in  his  place.  But  the  atmosphere  of 
the  house  was  one  of  friendly  equality.  Elizabeth 
—  who  had  herself  gone  into  training  for  a  few 
weeks  at  St.  Anne's  —  prided  herself  on  her 
dairy,  her  bread,  her  poultry.  One  might  have 
seen  her,  on  this  winter  afternoon,  in  her  black 
serge  dress  with  white  cap  and  apron,  slipping  into 


344       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

the  kitchen  behind  the  dining-room,  testing  the 
scones  in  the  oven,  looking  to  the  preparations 
for  dinner,  putting  away  stores,  and  chatting  to 
the  two  clear-eyed  women  who  loved  her,  and 
would  not  for  the  world  have  let  her  try  her 
strength  too  much!  For  she  who  was  so  eagerly 
planning  the  help  of  others  must  now  be  guarded 
and  cherished  herself  —  lest  ill  befall! 

But  now  she  was  at  the  window  watching  for 
Anderson. 

The  trail  from  Donaldminster  to  Battleford 
passed  in  front  of  the  house,  dividing  the  farm. 
Presently  there  came  slowly  along  it  a  covered 
wagon  drawn  by  a  pair  of  sorry  horses  and  piled 
at  the  back  with  household  possessions.  In 
front  sat  a  man  of  slouching  carriage,  and  in  the 
interior  of  the  wagon  another  figure  could  be 
dimly  seen.  The  whole  turn-out  gave  an  impres- 
sion of  poverty  and  misfortune;  and  Elizabeth 
looked  at  it  curiously. 

Suddenly,  the  wagon  drew  up  with  a  jerk 
at  the  gate  of  the  farm,  and  the  man  descended, 
with  difficulty,  his  limbs  being  evidently  numb 
with  cold. 

EHzabeth  caught  up  a  fur  cloak  and  ran  to  the 

door. 

"Could  you  give  us  a  bit  of  shelter  for  the 
night  V  said  the  man  sheepishly.     "We'd  thought 


EPILOGUE  345 

of  getting  on  to  Battleford,  but  the  little  un's  bad  — 
and  the  missus  perished  with  cold.  We'd  give  you 
no  trouble  if  we  might  warm  ourselves  a  bit." 

And  he  looked  under  his  eyebrows  at  Elizabeth, 
at  the  bright  fire  behind  her,  and  all  the  comfort 
of  the  new  farmhouse.  Yet  under  his  shuffling 
manner  there  was  a  certain  note  of  confidence. 
He  was  appealing  to  that  Homeric  hospitality 
which  prevails  throughout  the  farms  of  the  North- 
west. 

And  in  five  minutes,  the  horses  were  in  the  barn, 
the  man  sitting  by  the  kitchen  fire,  while 
Elizabeth  was  ministering  to  the  woman  and  child. 
The  new-comers  made  a  forlorn  trio.  They  came 
from  a  district  some  fifty  miles  further  south,  and 
were  travelling  north  in  order  to  take  shelter  for 
a  time  with  relations.  The  mother  was  a  girl  of 
twenty,  worn  with  hardship  and  privation.  The 
father,  an  English  labourer,  had  taken  up  free 
land,  but  in  spite  of  much  help  from  a  paternal 
Government,  had  not  been  able  to  fulfil  his  statu- 
tory obligation,  and  had  now  forfeited  his  farm. 
There  was  a  history  of  typhoid  fever,  and  as  Eliza- 
beth soon  suspected,  an  incipient  history  of  drink. 
In  the  first  two  years  of  his  Canadian  life  the  man 
worked  for  a  farmer  during  the  summer,  and 
loafed  in  Winnipeg  during  the  winter.  There 
demoralisation    had    begun,    and    as    Elizabeth 


346       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

listened,  the  shadow  of  the  Old  World  seemed 
to  be  creeping  across  the  radiant  Canadian  land- 
scape. The  same  woes  ?  —  the  same  weak- 
nesses ?  —  the  same  problems  of  an  unsound  urban 
Hfe  ? 

Her  heart  sank  for  a  moment  —  only  to  provoke 
an  instant  reaction  of  cheerfulness.  No!  —  in 
Canada  the  human  will  has  still  room  to  work,  and 
is  not  yet  choked  by  a  jungle  growth  of  interests. 

She  waited  for  Anderson  to  come  in,  and  mean- 
while she  warmed  and  comforted  the  mother. 
The  poor  girl  looked  round  her  in  amazement 
at  the  pretty  spacious  room,  as  she  spread  her 
hands,  knotted  and  coarsened  by  work,  to  the 
blaze.  Elizabeth  held  her  sickly  babe,  rocking 
it  and  crooning  to  it,  while  upstairs  one  of 
kind-eyed  Cumberland  women  was  getting  a 
warm  bath  ready,  and  lighting  a  fire  in  the  guest- 
room. 

"How  old  Is  it?"  she  asked. 

"Thirteen  months." 

"You  ought  to  give  up  nursing  it.  It  would 
be  better  for  you  both." 

"  I  tried  giving  it  a  bit  o'  what  we  had  ourselves," 
said  the  mother,  dully  —  "But  I  nearly  lost  her." 

"I  should  think  so!"  laughed  Elizabeth  indig- 
nantly; and  she  began  to  preach  rational  ways 
of  feeding   and   caring  for   the   child,  while   the 


EPILOGUE  347 

mother  sat  by,  despondent,  and  too  crushed  and 
hopeless  to  take  much  notice.  Presently  EHza- 
beth  gave  her  back  the  babe,  and  went  to  fetch 
hot  tea  and  bread  and  butter. 

"Shall  I  come  and  get  it  in  the  kitchen  .?"  said 
the  woman,  rising. 

"No,  no  —  stay  where  you  are!"  cried  Elizabeth. 
And  she  was  just  carrying  back  a  laden  tray  from 
the  dining-room  when  Anderson  caught  her. 

"Darling!  —  that's  too  heavy  for  you!  —  what 
are  you  about  ?" 

"There's  a  woman  in  there  who's  got  to  be 
fed  —  and  there's  a  man  in  there"  —  she  pointed 
to  the  kitchen  —  "who's  got  to  be  talked  to. 
Hopeless  case!  —  so  you'd  better  go  and  see 
about  it!" 

She  laughed  happily  in  his  face,  and  he  snatched 
a  kiss  from  her  as  he  carried  off  the  tray. 

The  woman  by  the  fire  rose  again  in  amaze- 
ment as  she  saw  the  broad-shouldered  handsome 
man  who  was  bringing  in  the  tea.  Anderson 
had  been  tramping  through  the  thin-lying  snow 
all  day,  inquiring  into  the  water-supply  of  a 
distant  portion  of  the  farm.  He  was  ruddy  with 
exercise,  and  the  physical  strength  that  seemed 
to  radiate  from  him  intimidated  the  wanderer. 

"Where  are  you  bound  to.^"  he  said  kindly, 
as  he  put  down  the  tea  beside  her. 


348       LADY   MERTON,  COLONIST 

The'woman,  falteringly,  told  her  story.  Ander- 
son frowned  a  little. 

"Well,  I'd  better  go  and  talk  to  your  husband. 
Mrs.  Anderson  will  look  after  you." 

And  EHzabeth  held  the  baby,  while  the  woman 
fed  languidly  —  too  tired  and  spiritless  indeed 
to  eat. 

When  she  could  be  coaxed  no  further,  Elizabeth 
took  her  and  the  babe  upstairs. 

"I  never  saw  anything  like  this  in  these  parts!" 
cried  the  girl,  looking  round  her  at  the  white-tiled 
bathroom. 

"Oh,  they're  getting  quite  common!"  laughed 
Elizabeth.  "See  how  nice  and  warm  the  water 
is!  Shall  we  bathe  the  baby  ?"  And  presently  the 
child  lay  warm  and  swaddled  in  its  mother's 
arms,  dressed  in  some  baby-clothes  produced 
by  Elizabeth  from  a  kind  of  travellers'  cupboard 
at  the  top  of  the  stairs.  Then  the  mother  was 
induced  to  try  a  bath  for  herself,  while  Elizabeth 
tried  her  hand  at  spoon-feeding  the  baby;  and  in 
half  an  hour  she  had  them  both  in  bed,  in  the 
bright  spare-room  —  the  young  mother's  reddish 
hair  unbound  lying  a  splendid  mass  on  the  white 
pillows,  and  a  strange  expression  —  as  of  some  long 
tension  giving  way  —  on  her  pinched  face. 

"We'll  not  know  how  to  thank  you"  —  she 
said  brokenly.     "We  were  just  at  the  last.     Tom 


EPILOGUE  349 

wouldn't  ask  no  one  to  help  us  before.  But  we'd 
only  a  few  shillings  left  —  we  thought  at  Battle- 
ford,  we'd  sell  our  bits  of  things  —  perhaps  that'd 
take  us  through."  She  looked  piteously  at 
Elizabeth,  the  tears  gathering  in  her  eyes. 

"Oh!  well,  we'll  see  about  that!"  said  Elizabeth, 
as  she  tucked  the  blankets  round  her.  "Nobody 
need  starve  in  this  country!  Mr.  Anderson '11 
be  able  perhaps  to  think  of  something.  Now 
you  go  to  sleep,  and  we'll  look  after  your  husband." 

Anderson  joined  his  wife  in  the  sitting-room, 
with  a  perplexed  countenance.  The  man  was 
a  poor  creature  —  and  the  beginnings  of  the 
drink-craving    were    evident. 

"Give  him  a  chance,"  said  Elizabeth.  "You 
want  one  more  man  in  the  bothy." 

She  sat  down  beside  him,  while  Anderson 
pondered,  his  legs  stretched  to  the  fire.  A  train 
of  thought  ran  through  his  mind,  embittered  by 
the  memory  of  his  father. 

He  was  roused  from  it  by  the  perception  that 
Elizabeth  was  looking  tired.  Instantly  he  was 
all  tenderness,  and  anxious  misgiving.  He  made 
her  He  down  on  the  sofa  by  the  fire,  and  brought 
her  some  important  letters  from  Ottawa  to  read, 
and  the  English  newspapers. 

From  the  elementary  human  need  with  which 
their  minds  had  just  been  busy,  their  talk  passed 


350       LADY  MERTON,  COLONIST 

on  to  National  and  Imperial  affairs.  They  dis- 
cussed them  as  equals  and  comrades,  each 
bringing  their  own  contribution. 

"In  a  fortnight  we  shall  be  in  Ottawa!"  sighed 
Elizabeth,  at  last. 

Anderson  smiled  at  her  plaintive  voice. 

"Darling!  — is  it  such  a  tragedy.?" 

"No,  I  shall  be  as  keen  as  anybody  else  when 
we  get  there.     But  —  we  are  so  happy  here!" 

"Is  that  really,  really  true.?"  asked  Anderson, 
taking  her  hand  and  pressing  it  to  his  lips. 

"Yes"  —  she  murmured  —  "yes  —  but  it  will 
be  truer  still  next  year!" 

They  looked  at  each  other  tenderly.  Anderson 
stooped  and  kissed  her,  long  and  closely. 

He  was  called  away  to  give  some  directions 
to  his  men,  and  Elizabeth  lay  dreaming  in  the 
firelight  of  the  past  and  the  future,  her  hands 
clasped  on  her  breast,  her  eyes  filling  with  soft 
tears.  Upstairs,  in  the  room  above  her,  the 
emigrant  mother  and  baby  lay  sleeping  in  the 
warmth  and  shelter  gathered  round  them  by 
Elizabeth.  But  in  tending  them,  she  had  been 
also  feeding  her  own  yearning,  quickening  her 
own  hope.  She  had  given  herself  to  a  man  whom 
she  adored,  and  she  carried  his  child  on  her 
heart.  Many  and  various  strands  would  have 
gone  to  the  weaving  of  that  little  soul;  she  trembled 


EPILOGUE  351 

sometimes  to  think  of  them.  But  no  fear  with 
her  lasted  long.  It  was  soon  lost  in  the  deep 
poetic  faith  that  Anderson's  child  in  her  arms 
would  be  the  heir  of  two  worlds,  the  pledge  of 
a  sympathy,  a  union,  begun  long  before  her 
marriage  in  the  depths  of  the  spirit,  when  her 
heart  first  went  out  to  Canada  —  to  the  beauty 
of  the  Canadian  land,  and  the  freedom  of  the 
Canadian  life. 


THE    END 


DATE  DUE 


GAYLORD 

PRINTED  IN  U    S    A. 

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